Bloodline
by NoDoubtTrickedUp
Summary: "Heimdall should have told you about me the moment I came into existence! But he didn't, did he!" "Who are you?" "Torunn." R & R
1. Hello

The Arrival-

She was actually very happy considering the state she was in. She had gotten past the bridge without being seen but was stopped by the 3 warriors. She knew it couldn't be good if they had her, and she would most definitely be put in jail for some time until John found her. But, she was still going to the castle, one way or another.

They made it to the castle and walked right into the throne room. She almost forgot about the trouble she was in while she was busy admiring everything around her. She had never seen anything like this before in her life, it was far beyond anything she had imagined. Asgard was beautiful.

All this admiration was put to rest when the blonde warrior pushed her down to her knees before the King. This warrior was actually very nice at first, a gentleman, really. However, once he tried a pick up line on her, she was having none of it. She ended up slapping him multiple times and accidentally scratching him with her nails once. After that, he was just mean and upset.

"Why is this here?!" The King demanded, not seeing any point in the warriors arresting a 15 year old girl.

"She broke through the Bifrost without being spotted and refuses to tell us who she is or how she did it." A deeper voice said. She turned and saw that it was the darker haired one, Hogan, the other two called him.

"Who are you?" The King demanded.

"No one of consequence." She said, a small smirk playing on her lips.

The blonde warrior, she assumed, put the tip of his sword to the back of her neck. "Who. Are. You?"

"Does it matter?" She asked somewhat sarcastically. He dug the tip deeper into her skin.

"Hogan, put it away. Thank you. I will take care of the rest." The King said. Reluctantly, he sheathed the sword.

"But my king-" the blonde one began. The King silenced him with the raise of his hand.

'If only i could had that kind of power.' She thought. She heard one last growl from the blonde one before they left.

"So, child, are you going to tell me why you are here?" The King asked.

"I am 'here' because your warriors dragged me here." She growled.

The King frowned. "They only did that because you broke through the Bifrost and won't tell us who you are! Now tell me who you are!" his voice began to rise.

"I will tell you nothing." She said through gritted teeth. He called forth a guard. "Go to Heimdall. Get whatever information you can about her." The guard nodded and ran off. She was grinning that mischievous grin that her 'mother' had hated so much.

After a long silence, she said, "Who I am does not concern you."

He raised a questioning eyebrow. "Well then who does it concern?" There was another long silence. As she was about to answer, the guard came running back in with a panicked look on his face.

"What of Heimdall?!" The King yelled. He was more desperate for answers than she'd previously imagined.

"My King, Heimdall has been...hurt. He is in the healing room." The King's gaze shifted slowly from the guard to her, his face now filled with anger and confusion. The grin had returned to her face once again.

"You were saying?" She could tell he was struggling to keep his voice level.

"I came to see your son. The thunder god." She said.

"Very well, he will pay you a visit in the dungeon soon." He gestured to a guard and the guard started toward her. She stood, and the guard stopped in his tracks, almost as if he was scared. Her grin widened at this.

"I will not be put in a dungeon," She said, the grin fading, "I will see the Thunder God here, now." She wondered whether or not she would get away with giving the King of the most powerful kingdom in the 9 realms orders. He nodded to the guard again, who ran past her, she assumed to get Thor. He returned several minutes later, in which the King was actually looking uncomfortable, if not a bit startled from being under her gaze so long.

"Father." Thor greeted the King. A dark haired girl trailed behind him.

"Thor, this child here refuses to tell us who she is or how she got here. She wanted to see you. Now, I have other matters to attend to." He rose from the throne and left the room. Thor stood in front of the throne facing her and the dark haired girl stopped beside him.

"This is Sif." he said. Sif nodded to the other girl but she stayed still, her gaze lingering on Thor. "Why did you need to see me then?" he said. He took a seat on the throne.

"You don't remember do you?" the girl said. He looked at her for a moment, trying to remember anything that had to do with a blonde girl with a blue hood.

"I don't. I have never met you." He said finally.

"Ah, you don't me, but i know you." She said.

"What do you mean? Did we know each other in the past?" he said.

"He never told you, did he?" She said.

"Who are you?"

"Oh, why do you people still ask that when you should know you won't get an answer?"she said. "Heimdall, you idiot! He see's everything! He should have told you about me the moment I came into existence! But he didn't, did he?"

He was getting angrier now. "Remove your hood." he demanded.

"No." She said. He gestured for Sif to leave, and she slowly walked up the stairs, glancing back a few times.

"Remove her hood." He said to a guard. The guard came and reached for it. She moved away. He tried again and again and another guard came, but she was fighting them. She had hand cuffs so she couldn't do much. It took 4 guards to hold her still and a 5th came up and pulled the blue hood back. It revealed long blonde hair and piercing blue-grey eyes the color of storms. Still half struggling to get away from the guards (though she knew she wouldn't get away) she stared up at the future king. He still looked very confused and angry. The mischievous grin returned to her face.

"Hello, father. I am Torunn Thordottir."


	2. My Fault

My Fault-

Thor stared the girl down for a long while. He looked like he wanted to argue and she would have loved that.

"Take her to the dungeon." he said, "I will speak with her later."

She struggled as the guards dragged her away, but it didn't make much difference. The cells in the dungeon didn't have bars or anything, just glowing energy fields to keep the prisoners inside.

_Probably magic barriers_, she thought. _I hate magic._

Torunn was thrown into a cell all by herself. She just leaned against the side wall and sunk down to the ground. All she could do now was wait for Thor to come and argue with her.

Torunn woke early the next morning to the sound of doors opening and heavy footsteps against the stone floor. Thor stood in front of her cell. She stood before him on the other side of the barrier. It was silent for a few minutes.

"Well?" she said.

"Who are you?" he said. _Are you kidding me?_, she thought.

"Torunn." she said plainly.

"Who is your mother?"

"Kristen Hawkins. Of Midgard."

"And you claim to be my daughter." He looked her up and down, like he was searching for every flaw and any resemblance between them. "I admit, I was a bit...foolish...when I last went to Midgard, but I was never informed that I caused a pregnancy."

"I know. That's what I said yesterday. Heimdall should have told you about me."

"Well he failed to do so."

"Apparently."

"For a mortal woman to survive giving birth to the child of an Aesir is unheard of. If you really were half-human, you would not exist." He crossed his arms over his chest.

"She did. It is hard to do, but not impossible. She died shortly after my birth, but not before naming me."

"You are not mine." He said simply. He turned and started to walk away.

She got angry at him. Couldn't he at least give her a chance? "Maybe the reason it's unheard of is because anytime a child tries to find their father, you damn Asgardians throw them in a dungeon!"

He turned quickly and stomped back to the front of her cell. "You will not disrespect my people!" He shouted. "It is your fault you are in here because you used an illegal passageway into Asgard and nearly took the life of our gatekeeper!"

"Look, I apologize for the gatekeeper, but he was going to send me back!" she was yelling now, too. "I had to find you, how else was I supposed to get here?!"

He had no answer for this and they simply stood there, glaring at each other. He turned and stormed out of the dungeon without another word. She had won the argument, but he would probably be back at some point, hopefully to at least free her from this awful place.

Torunn sat alone in the back corner of her cell for what felt like hours. She wasn't sure why, but she had always hated not knowing the time. She had taken the small chain necklace off of her neck and was twirling it around her finger, trying to entertain herself in someway. The doors opened again, but instead of the heavy, angry footsteps she expected, she barely heard a thing. Torunn suddenly became very interested in this new visitor.

A woman in a gold colored dress and light brown curls stepped into view.

"Queen Frigga." Torunn said, bowing dramatically.

"Lady Torunn." She replied, simply bowing her head briefly. Torunn raised an eyebrow at being called "Lady". "You claim to be the child of my son?"

"I think I've made that very clear." Torunn said. _How many other prisoners have done that?_

"Well, and answer me truthfully, are you really the daughter of Thor?" The Queen said.

"Yes. But apparently my word is not enough for the idea to even be considered, so without proof, I can't do anything."

"I believe you."

Torunn raised and eyebrow again. "You do?"

The Queen nodded. "Though it will take my son to do the same. You have done much to get here and simply make yourself known to him. I will do what I can to sway him, but the rest will be left to you."

Torunn waited for a second. "Thank you." The Queen smiled, nodded, and turned to leave.

"Queen Frigga?" Torunn said. The Queen turned back to her.

"Yes?" She said.

"Tell Fandral I'm sorry."


	3. Free For Now

Torunn had no more visitors for the day. She assumed it was dark out because the guards came through and gave out food to the prisoners. The food they received...well, have you ever not wanted to eat something that your parents made for dinner, and they tell you that if you were starving, you would eat it? If she was not, in fact starving, she would not have eaten it for all the money in the nine realms. It had taken a very long time for her to find and make it through the passageway into Asgard, and she had gone a while without a good meal.

That night, she didn't bother to get onto the extremely uncomfortable cot in her cell, but instead stayed where she was on the floor, leaned against the wall. She hoped with every fiber of her being that the Queen Frigga or someone, anyone, would find a way to get her out of this dungeon. Despite her usual sarcasm and snark, she really wanted Thor to just believe her and realize that he had thrown his daughter in a dungeon and was starting to crack her serious, confident mask.

Nothing happened for the next three days, her only sense of time being the meals brought to the prisoners. She was running out of things to entertain herself with. She had just been throwing the silver chain necklace and catching it or twirling it around her finger. She thought she could actually _feel_ brain cells dying. The true punishment of the dungeon was not solitude, horrible food, or bad treatment. It was just pure boredom. No visitors, no arguments, no word from Frigga, not even a beating from the guards as the other prisoners sometimes got. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

That is, until a certain silver-tongued lie smith came to see her.

"Is it true?" She woke to Loki's voice.

"What?" She said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"That you say you are the daughter of Thor?" he rolled his eyes.

"Yeah," she said, "why?"

"Well," he stepped up on the stairs leading to her cell, "I was just thinking of how much trouble Thor caused in his younger years and wondered how much an adolescent female version could cause. Especially with a trickster god's help."

She sighed. "Is there a point to this?"

"The _point_ is," he said, "that if you are interested at all in...say..._getting back_ at your father, I can free you from your cell."

She grinned for the first time in four days. "What would we be doing exactly?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I'll tell you that when you are out of this prison."

"Get me out, then."

Loki smirked and plunged a dagger through the barrier, merely causing cracks at first, but it quickly spread out over the whole thing and it shattered. The glow left the glass shards as they rained down and Torunn jumped to her feet and got out of the way. She stared at the broken pieces for a moment. _Enchanted glass maybe? Too confusing, exactly why I don't like magic._

Loki gestured for her to follow him and she jumped down the steps. As they walked through the dungeon to the exit, she noticed all the guards were either on the ground or slumped limply against the wall. "Their not dead," Loki assured her, "just sleeping for a while."

They walked out of the dungeon, and back to the throne room. As it turns out, Loki had not only put the guard's to sleep, but nearly everyone else in the castle as well.

"Loki!" Well, not _everyone_, apparently.

Thor came stomping into the room, heading for Loki at first, but stopping dead in his tracks when he saw that..._thing_ standing there. Queen Frigga came in after him, seeing Torunn and Loki.


	4. Second Chance

The Queen walked through the hall, smiling at passing servants. She stopped in from of Loki's chambers. She raised her hand to knock, but the door opened by itself, revealing her youngest son on the other side.

"Time?" he said.

She nodded. "And don't over-do it, Loki."

He smirked and headed to the dungeon. The Queen went to Thor's room. While Loki got the girl, Frigga was going to try, for the fourth time in a row, to reason with Thor and get him to give the girl a chance. She knocked on his door and he opened it seconds later.

"Yes?" he said, sensing that she would talk about that girl again.

"Thor, I know I have said this many times, but I really think you should give the girl a chance." The Queen said, hoping he would listen this time.

Thor sighed as she stepped into his chambers. "I already told you, Mother, there is no way she is mine."

"It _is_ possible, Thor." She said. "A mortal woman can successfully give birth to the child of an Aesir, though they most often die soon after. Just like Torunn's mother."

"Yes, I know." Thor said. "She told me all about that."

There was a loud crash somewhere in the castle. Thor and Frigga turned in the direction of the sound that was with out doubt a cell barrier being broken. The same thought passed through their minds and they knew exactly what had just happened.

Thor ran out of the room with Frigga a short ways behind him. He noticed that all the servants that had been in the corridor were collapsed on the ground. He knew then exactly who was up to this.

"Loki!" Thor yelled.

He ran in to the throne room, heading for his brother, but stopped when he saw the other girl beside him.

"What is she doing here?!" Thor said, still half-shouting. The Queen came in behind him, glancing apologetically at Torunn and Loki.

"Erm...I'm guessing you were not able to persuade him?" Loki said to Frigga.

Thor just looked at the both of them, avoiding looking at Torunn, trying to figure out what was going on. "Hold on...did you two..."

The Queen nodded. "I'm sorry, Thor. But you really need to give her a chance."

Thor looked furious. He glared at her.

"I swear, I didn't know they were-" Torunn started.

"Silence!" Thor yelled. She shut her mouth and backed away. "Can you prove that you are mine?" he said.

"Can you prove that I am not?" she snapped back.

"Do you...Do you even have a special ability? Can you summon storms, or control lightning?"

She stayed silent. Loki had backed away and stood behind Torunn, simply watching the conversation. Frigga stood behind Thor.

"Thor, please. She-" Frigga tried to reason with him.

"Maybe she can do magic." Loki chimed in. Thor glanced at Loki then back to Torunn.

"Well can you?" Thor said.

"No, but-" Torunn said.

"Then what is there that is special about you?" Thor yelled. "What do you have that deems you in anyway a demigod?"

There was a long silence. "Nothing..." Torunn said, extremely embarrassed.

"Loki, why don't you take Torunn to get a room?" The Queen said. "She is free of her imprisonment sentence." Loki and Torunn both looked surprised for a moment, but Loki took her arm and quickly led her away from Thor and Frigga, knowing that they would argue. Thor watched their backs as they left and turned back to Frigga.

"She is _free_?" Thor said.

"Yes. Since Heimdall has healed, and her passage into Asgard is excused by me, she is free. And I am sure your father will understand."

Thor glared, but did not argue that. "I still do not fully believe she is mine." He said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"So you have started to at least consider the idea, then?" Frigga raised an eyebrow.

"I guess it could happen." Thor very nearly rolled his eyes at hearing himself say it. "But no child of mine would have made that kind of entrance."

"Not if you had taken part in raising the child." Frigga countered, "But she grew up without a father that would have taught her that he wouldn't like her to do that." Thor uncrossed his arms. "Thor, she never had a mother, and until four days ago, her father was not aware of her existence."

"Did she tell you anything about her past?" Thor said, somewhat thinking out loud.

"Aside from her mother dying shortly after her birth, no. She has told me nothing more."

"Oh..." Thor said, looking down at his feet. He would not say it at the moment, but he was curious about this girl.

"You could find out." Frigga said. Thor looked at her again. She smiled. "You should get to know her. She is obviously a bit of a fighter, we could send you on quests together, sometimes with a few friends. You two could do this for a while, and when you are ready, you can decide for certain if she is yours."

Thor thought over this for a minute. "I will, if she will."


	5. Come In

Torunn sat alone in the room Loki had showed her for hours. She could hear footsteps and voices in the corridor outside, which meant Loki must have let everyone wake. She would give anything to know what Frigga and Thor were talking about down there. Why was he simply refusing to believe her? She wasn't small, or weak, or shy, or anything that he maybe wouldn't like about her.

There was a knock at the door and she sprang up from the foot of her bed. "Yeah?" she said, loud enough so the person on the other side could hear. Nothing happened for few seconds, then the door opened. Thor stepped in and she involuntarily took a step back, for what reason, she didn't know.

"Usually, upon hearing a knock, the other would say 'Come in.'" Thor said jokingly, closing the door behind him.

She gave small smile. "Sorry."

After the conversation he had with his mother, he had gone to his own chambers for a while and also to Loki's where he had an argument with his brother as to why he freed Torunn.

As much as she hated long, awkward silences, especially between her and her own father, they always came up. Every. Single. Time. Ugh.

She suddenly became very interested in her dirty leather boots. "So...did you need anything...?"

"Yes." He said, obviously not very happy about whatever it was, "My mother thought that maybe she could send us on a few quests together, sometimes with a few friends."

"Like a bonding sort of thing?" She said, looking up at him.

"Yes, something like that." Even he didn't fully understand what the Queen had in mind. "You are obviously a bit of a fighter, and we could do quests for a while, I would probably get to know you better, and I could eventually decide for certain whether or not I thought you were mine. I told her I would do it if you were fine with it."

Another silence came, but not an awkward one as before. It was a silence born from both father and daughter in thought. "So...this is sort of...like a test?" She said.

Thor gave her a look that said he didn't understand her reasoning.

"I mean, so we go on these missions-"

"Quests." Thor corrected.

"Yeah, 'quests'-" she rolled her eyes,"and you sort of watch the way I fight and of course we would talk there so you would sort of just...evaluate me."

"Well, I suppose." Thor said. "But if you do not wish to do it, I will not."

Torunn sat on the end of the bed again and thought about it for a moment.

"Where would we go?" she asked.

"I believe I will leave that up to my mother, given that this is her idea." Thor said. "We would go to different places in Asgard, to explore other realms, we could go anywhere."

"Well, how long would this go on?" she asked.

Thor crossed his arms over his chest. "I am not sure." He said, not expecting this many questions. "I suppose my mother or I will decide. Or perhaps if you decide at any time that you do not wish to continue."

There was another silence between them, silence caused by her thinking and Thor just waiting on her response. "This sounds pretty cool." She said. "I wanna do it."

"You do?"

"Yeah, this seems like a pretty good idea." _Anything if you'll believe me,_ she thought.

"Then it is set." He said.

"When do we start?"

Thor sighed. "Again, I do not know. The idea was just brought into question and I have yet to tell mother of your consent."

"Oh, okay." She said.

"It is late, and since neither of us know when we are expected to start, we should get all the sleep we can. I will inform mother of you approval in the morning. Sleep well." He said, turning to take his leave.

"Yeah, you, too. Good night." She said. He turned back for a moment and nodded. Then stepped out and closed the door.

Torunn sat on the end of the bed for a few minutes more, and eventually laid down and got under the soft white covers. She was not used to such luxuries as this. Of course, she always had a _bed, _but never one this big...or this comfy. She always had the small, hard beds in orphanages. Then when she ran away, she was on the streets for a few months, not having a bed at all and sleeping in alley ways. During the week before she busted into Asgard, she was in a hotel. The bed was nice there, but still nothing compared to this one.

Not that she had money to _pay_ for a hotel...not that she had money _at all_-

No, it was too late and Torunn was too tired to think about that stuff right now. She closed her eyes and soon fell into the deepest sleep she'd had in years.


	6. Help me!

**Announcement-**

**This is not a chapter, this is a cry for help. I have absolutely no idea what to do at this point. I have three questions.**

**Where do you want me to send them first?**

**Whether you voted where you want me to put them or not, does anyone have ideas as to what should happen?**

**Last but not least, should I bring John into the story eventually? (he was mentioned in the first chapter) **

**Please help if you have any ideas! I am in a complete writers block! Thank you!**


	7. Home

Thor closed the door behind him and stood outside the door for a moment before walking off down the hall to find the Queen. He stood in front of her chambers and knocked. "Come in," she said from inside the room. He opened the door and stepped in. Frigga sat in a chair, reading. She looked up from her book and smiled upon seeing Thor.

"Mother," Thor said. "She has agreed to do the quests."

"Oh, wonderful!" The Queen said, closing the book and laying it down on a nightstand.

"She wishes to know when we will start and where you plan on sending us."

"Well, I suppose she should have some time to get used to things here," the Queen said. "So, three days? And I thought I'd leave some of the locations for you and her to decide."

Thor nodded. "Thank you, mother."

"Where is she now?" Frigga said.

"She is asleep." Thor said. He nodded again and stepped out, closing the door behind him. He fell asleep almost as quickly as Torunn.

Thor and Fandral walked through the streets of New York City, nine years in the past. It was one of the few times that they had decided to visit Midgard, the last time being six years before. They hadn't bothered to dress as normal humans, and they stayed in their usual clothing. As a result, people had assumed that they were just dressing up, and many of them (mostly young women) had called him Robin Hood.

There were somewhat distant sounds of children at play. A little girl with blonde hair, jeans, and a red shirt came running out from beside a house. She ran towards them and hid behind Fandral's leg. She couldn't have been more than six and she was dirty, from playing, Fandral guessed. Two little boys came running from the same direction. One had a plastic crown and both had tied towels around their necks to look like a cape. "Stop, girl!" the boy with the crown shouted. They were obviously older, but only by a year. He was brown haired and pale, and the other had sandy blonde hair and perfectly tanned skin. The girl crept further behind Fandral.

"What is this?" Thor said, laughing a little.

"Girls are not allowed in the kingdom." The boy said. "She has to be taken back to the jail." The 'jail' was probably whatever house they lived in.

"What are your names?" Fandral said to the boys.

"King John." The first boy said.

"Daniel." the other said.

Fandral looked down at the small figure still hiding behind him. "And you?" he said. "Come on, don't be scared." He gently pulled her out from behind him and bent down to her level. Then he noticed her eyes, blue-grey like Thor's, the color of storms.

"T-torunn." the girl said.

"Torunn? Where do you live, Torunn?" he said.

"I-in the orphanage." Torunn said, still a little scared.

"Well, then" Thor said. "can Torunn be released of the charges if we come back and tell you a story?" It was late and the children would be called inside soon, anyway. John and Daniel thought it over for a moment. They never got many visitors at the orphanage, the other kids liked meeting people, and stories were always good.

John, being the King in this situation, got the final say. "Deal." He said, nodding. Then the voice of a lady was heard, calling the children back inside. The two boys turned toward the lady and back to Thor and Fandral. "C'mon, this way." John said, waving them over and running back down the road with Daniel behind him. Fandral smiled at the girl. He picked her up and sat her on his shoulders. All three of them laughed and Fandral took off running down the road after the boys, Thor following him. Torunn was laughing above him, obviously enjoying the ride.

They made it back to the orphanage after winding through several houses and the lady, Mrs. Ava, as the kids' called her, let them in after Thor explained the deal. The only condition was that Thor and Fandral had to leave their hammer and sword outside the door. Fandral put Torunn back on the ground so he and Thor could put down their weapons.

They did so and Fandral felt a small hand take his. He saw Torunn, and Daniel had taken Thor's hand. John stood in front of them. "C'mon, c'mon," the boy said. Fandral and Thor were led up the stairs and into what the kids called their play room. It was a big, bright circular room, painted light blue and with soft white carpet. It had different play sets scattered around and was mostly cluttered with toys, but there was one corner in the back, with no toys, the floor covered in pillows, where the children had made a big tent out of pillows and sheets.

"Into the castle!" Daniel exclaimed. The 'castle' he was referring to was their pillow fort in the corner. Fandral and Thor found two pillows in the 'castle' and sat side by side on those. The only children there were a few that had followed them up the stairs, Torunn, and the boys. They sat on blankets in front of the men, except for Torunn, who had been allowed to come and sit on Thor's lap. "C'mon, you have to tell us a story!" Daniel said. All of the children cheered.

"Well," Fandral said to Thor, "What should we tell them?"

"What about last month's hunt?" Thor said. Fandral nodded. They told them a fairly short story about their last hunt for wild boar, at the King, Odin's, request. There was more than one in the enchanted forest, that they knew, but there weren't usually in the same place. This time there were five of them, when they only set out for two. It took Thor, Fandral, and Sif to stop them all, most of them being killed by Sif. (Three girls in the small crowd of children, including Torunn, cheered at this.) At one point in the story, one of the beasts tackled Fandral from behind, causing him to land on his arm the wrong way and breaking it. Eventually, they killed all of them and went back to the castle, Thor and Sif carrying the animals since Fandral had his arm to deal with. When they returned, a healer gave Fandral a sling and some medicine and sent him away. Everyone at the castle was happy about the hunt, but none more overjoyed, Fandral said, than their large friend, Volstagg.

"He swore that he could eat four of them without stopping!" Thor said.

"As I remember, he did!" Fandral said, laughing. Thor and the children joined in. One child asked if Fandral's arm was okay now and he flexed his arms to show them. Then they wanted him to prove his strength. Some children latched onto his arms and he would lift them up above his head and they would smile and laugh. He did this for a few minutes until he noticed something.

Fandral looked at Thor and at the quiet figure in his lap. "Thor, look." He said, his voice quieter now.

Thor looked down at Torunn. "She is asleep."

Fandral woke up suddenly. Funny, he hadn't thought about that day in a long time. He got up and looked in his mirror. The scratch was still there from the week before when that girl got angry at him. _What happened to her, anyway?_, he thought. He brushed it off, knowing it would only take another day or two to disappear and left his room.

Then that girl and Thor walked by him. They both stopped and said hello. Then he noticed the girls eyes, grey-blue, the color of storms. Just like…

"Torunn." He said, thinking out loud.


	8. I Know You Know

That morning, Fandral and Torunn had what was probably the most awkward breakfast of their entire lives. Thor could tell that something was bothering Fandral because he was never this quiet. But Torunn kept glancing up at him and she didn't say much either. Fandral seemed to know she would say something to him eventually and he apparently didn't want that to happen because he ate as quickly as possible, even managing to finish before Volstagg, and left for who knows where.

Torunn didn't even finish her plate before she stood from the table.

"I'll catch up with you later." she said to Thor. He did not get to ask what was going on before she was gone, following Fandral.

Fandral heard the girl behind him in the hallway and walked faster. Torunn decided that she was not going to play the 'he speeds up- I speed up' game and cut straight to running and grabbing his wrist.

"I know you remember me." she said.

"Yes, your nails made sure of that." He said, gesturing to the scratch on his face.

"No," she said, rolling her eyes, "before that, in the orphanage."

He was planning on playing dumb again, but for whatever reason, he didn't. "Yes, I remember."

"You let me ride on your shoulders." She smiled.

"And that boy..."

"John." she said.

"He said he was the King and that you were supposed to be in jail. Wasn't it because...'girls are not allowed in the kingdom?'" Fandral laughed.

"Yeah." she laughed, too. "Apparently he was right. But its daughters that are not allowed." It was meant to be a joke, but neither of them were laughing now.

"I'm not sure why he still doesn't believe you. I mean, you slipped up, but there is an obvious resemblance. In appearance AND behavior." He touched the scratch on his cheek again. This time they laughed, and she enjoyed it. It had been a while since she laughed with someone. "So does Thor know anything about the orphanage?"

"Well, he does, but he doesn't remember that it was me specifically." she said, "All he knows is that my mom died. That was one of the things I was hopeful about with this whole quest thing. That we would talk and he would get to know me."

"We should tell him about this, the orphanage, I mean. Maybe it will help your argument."

"Yeah, but we could also have a little fun with this." Torunn's smile turned a little mischievous.

"How?"

"We could sort of just hint him in on it, you know, see how long it takes him to remember." she said. Fandral thought about it.

"Yes, and do you remember the story that we told to the children that day?"

"You don't really just forget two weirdly dressed guys visiting the orphanage and telling a story about a boar hunt. That's a little impossible."

Fandral gave her 'whatever' look and continued. "Well, maybe the first place you and Thor go could be the enchanted forest. Not necessarily for a hunt, but just to do it." He said, "We used to play there a lot as children."

"Yeah, I like that idea." she said. "But I still don't know when I'm leaving or anything. So I'll have to find out from Thor in a minute when I go back there."

"Speaking of Thor, how do we explain the awkward breakfast?"

"Just tell them you were scared I would unleash my demon nails again." She smiled. They laughed again and headed back down the hallway. "Sorry about that, by the way." she said, once they reached the banquet hall.

"Its fine, not the first time." he said. "But you could have thought of a better way to thank me for the story." They laughed again, even thought it wasn't _that_ funny. Then she went back to the table to sit beside Thor again, who, luckily hadn't taken away her unfinished plate. Fandral sat across from her and got more food, too, since one plate really wasn't enough for him. Thor watched them come back in, watched them laugh, and realized that he had never seen her laugh before then. He had only gotten a small smile from her. For a moment, he was almost jealous.

"Hey, so did you talk to your mom yet?" Torunn asked, bringing him back, away from his thoughts.

"Yes, I spoke with her last night." he said.

"And? When do we start?"

"She said she would give us three days." he didn't notice Torunn and Fandral glance at each other, "so you could get a little more used to Asgard and we can have some time to talk before taking off."

"Hm. Okay, sounds good." she said. They continued to talk, Torunn and Fandral mostly talking to each other. Thor introduced Torunn to Sif, Hogun, and Voltsagg. Of course, she had met them all before, but the first meeting wasn't a very good one. For a second, Fandral thought she actually looked like Thor. Laughing with all of his friends. Messing with Thor about remembering her was going to be fun.

OOO

The rest of the day was spent with Thor and Fandral showing her around the castle. Thor wanted to show her a lot of stuff outside and Fandral made sure to point out where the Enchanted Forest was. They both wanted to show her the court yard where the they and their friends often sparred.

It reminded Torunn of the orphanage and how, when her and some of the other kids played 'Kingdom' they would sword fight with them (mostly with John) with foam swords or sticks. It never occurred to her somehow that there was a word for it, though.

Then they got into a playful argument about who won the most fights there.

"Alright, fine," Thor said, "You may win out here, but in the battlefield, I would beat you into the ground." They laughed.

"Lets hope we don't have to test that anytime soon!" Fandral said. Torunn laughed a little,too, and hoped the same thing.

The next day was spent almost the same. The only difference was that Thor had to do something and couldn't be with them that day, but he wouldn't say why. Fandral just showed her around, mostly to places that she had already seen. But since Thor wasn't there to hear them, they also talked about other ways that they could mess with him. The scratch on his cheek was barely visible now and she brought it up multiple times to get on his nerves.

OOO

On the third day, after dinner, Thor came to visit her again. This time, she made sure that she said "Come in."

"Hello." She said, after he came in and closed the door.

"Hello." He said. He sat on the end of her bed, and she was sitting at the top.

"What's your favorite color?" He asked, a little awkwardly.

"What?" she said. He shifted a little on the bed.

"Well," he said, "I realized that I still do not know much about you and I thought that maybe I should fix that tomorrow."

"Oh, okay." she said.

"And I already know that your mother died..." he looked down.

"Yeah, and it's okay, you can say it." she said, noticing how uncomfortable it made him to bring it up, "It was a long time ago and I never even knew her." As if that made it all better.

"Oh. Alright." he said, not sure where he planned to go after that. "Well, what else is there? Aside from that?"

"Um...I lived in and out of different foster homes for a long time." she said, careful not to actually say she was in an orphanage. "I never got attached to any of them, though."

"Why not?"

"I don't know, I just didn't. It never really felt right. None of them did." she turned and flopped onto her back, her body going across the bed.

"Hm. Oh, how old are you?"

"I am fifteen. And my birthday is December 6th."

"Where do you want to go tomorrow?"

"Um...I don't really know." she said, not bringing up the fact that she knew exactly where she wanted to go. "Maybe we should just decide in the morning."

"Alright." he said. There were a few seconds of silence, but it was not awkward. She was prepared for something to happen, and he was planning something, she knew it. "Are you ticklish?"

"Wha- AH!" He turned over quickly and tickled her tummy. As it turns out, she was extremely ticklish. But she, like anyone else, tried not to advertise the fact for this exact reason. He did that for a good few minutes and she squealed and laughed. "Stop, stop, I can't breathe!"

"If you couldn't breath, you wouldn't be talking!" He said, but he stopped a few seconds later. She sat up, hand over her stomach, breathing a little heavy. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she said, laughing a bit, "What was that?"

"Nothing." he smiled, "I just wanted to make you laugh."

"Mission accomplished!" They laughed again.

"Well, I will see you in the morning. Sleep well."

"Good night." She said. He got up and opened the door. "Hey, by the way," she said, just as he was walking out. He turned back quickly. "I like blue."

"Red, for me." He smiled and went to get some sleep. After all, they had a lot to do tomorrow.


	9. Lets Go

Torunn awoke to someone knocking hard on her door. She got out of bed quickly, already dressed, because she had accidentally slept in her clothes. She opened the door to see Fandral.

"Sleep well?" he said sarcastically.

"Yeah, you?" she said.

"Yes, thank you, but your father wants you at the Bifrost observatory in five minutes."

"Five minutes?!" she said.

"Yes, five. It was fifteen but I spent ten trying to wake you!" he let out a breath of laughter.

"Fine, fine." she rolled her eyes.

"And good morning."

She smiled. "Good morning." She closed the door, got new clothes on, and brushed her hair. She thought about bringing her cape, but decided against it. She also left behind her sword, thinking that she would not be needing any weapons the first time, and if she did, they would give her one.

Torunn took a quick look in the mirror and ran through the corridor, down to the banquet hall. She heard someone running behind her and assumed it was Fandral. She ran faster and grabbed an apple off of someone's plate just as they were about to bite into it. This earned her many disapproving looks from the people near her, but she paid them no mind, continuing to run down the table, careful not to step on anything. She jumped off of the end of the table and ran back up the stairs, narrowly missing the hand of someone at the table trying to stop her.

She ran through the halls, knowing her five minutes was almost up. She stopped and turned in the middle of the corridor and saw Fandral a few feet behind her. "Keep going!" he said. Torunn grinned, turned, and ran faster than before, just to see if he could catch up. "Slow down!" she heard him call after her.

"Speed up!" she yelled over her shoulder. She winded through the many maids and guards that walked the halls, many of them glaring after her, only to be nearly knocked over by the blonde man following her. He was not quite as quick as her, she knew, so she made it her temporary goal to get tangled into the small crowd of people. She made it into the Bifrost observatory and flattened herself against the wall right beside the door. Thor smiled at her arrival and started to come towards her, but she put a finger to her lips, telling him to be quiet.

He looked confused, but backed away. A few seconds later, Fandral came running in, almost crashing into Thor. Torunn took a bite out of her apple as he turned around. Thor figured out the situation pretty quickly.

"You know," Thor said, "if I didn't know any better, I would think this was your form of flirtation with each other." he raised an eyebrow.

"Nope," Torunn said.

"Never," Fandral said, "We are only friends, Thor." He and Torunn glanced at each other. "Unless...you are simply jealous that I have made better friends with your daughter before you have."

"I have not decided whether or not she is mine, yet." Thor said, "But," he said, seeing the sad look Torunn had, "I am sure that I will soon, seeing as she just beat you in a race to get here."

Torunn looked at Fandral and grinned. He just rolled his eyes at her.

"No weapons?" Thor said, looking over her.

"Pfft, I am a weapon." she said. Both Thor and Fandral laughed.

"Let us hope you are correct." Thor said.

"Yes," Fandral said, "but it might be easier to pick a location where you most likely will not require any weaponry."

"Yeah," she said, glancing at Fandral, "I was thinking we should just start somewhere easy on the first time."

"Is that so?" Thor asked, "Did you have any place in mind, then?"

"Hm...not really." she said.

"Oh!" Fandral said, making her jump a bit. Thor looked to him. "You could try the Enchanted Forest."

"Oh yeah, Volstagg told many stories about hunts and stuff there." Torunn said. They both looked at Thor, waiting for any form of recognition on his face, but it never came.

"Yes, but, seeing as you brought no weapons, this will probably not be a hunt." Thor said.

"Well, no." Fandral said. "But as children, we went there many times simply to play. Not everything has to a be a hunt or war, Thor."

Thor rolled his eyes, at them. "Alright, we can go to the forest." he said.

"And if anything does try to attack, I am sure Mjolnir will make short work of them." Fandral laughed and so did Torunn.

Thor looked at them skeptically. "Is there something I don't know about here?"

"No." They said in unison.

He paused for a moment before continuing. "Well, if we are simply going to the forest, then we will have no need for the Bifrost this day."

_Good_, Torunn thought. Her passage here had not been through the Bifrost, but it had not been very pleasant. To much flying and falling at the same time and not knowing where she was and a million galaxies looking like smears of paint. She did not think that traveling via the Bifrost would be much different.

"Lets go." he said. Thor and Torunn left the observatory, Fandral nodding to Torunn as she walked out. Almost twenty minutes later, they approached the Enchanted Forest. Torunn finishing the apple on the way there. They just walked around for a few minutes, Torunn looked around, admiring everything. Thor got caught up in thinking about all the times as a child when he would run around with his friends, sparring, racing up trees, anything, as long as they were happy. He turned to ask Torunn something, but she no where to be seen. He looked around, not seeing anything. As he was about to call for her, a pine cone hit him in the head. He looked up in surprise to see a girl high up in the branches, having accidentally broken the pine cone off of the branch.

"Sorry!" she shouted.

"How did you..." he said to himself. He thought he had only took his eyes off of her for a few seconds.

Something else hit his head, a branch this time, and then another. He heard childlike laughter from up in the tree. "Stop that!" he called. Torunn only laughed harder. Her laughing caused her to loose focus for a moment too long and she nearly fell. Thor gasped, his heart skipping a beat. Torunn regained her balance quickly and looked down, noticing Thor's brief concern.

"Aww, you do care!" she said. He just glared up at her.

"Come down from there!" he called. She grinned and jumped from the branch, swinging on some of them, barely paying any attention to what she was doing. She jumped down from the lowest branch, which wasn't very low at all, nearly six feet off the ground. Thor had to wonder how she made it up there in the first place. He nearly jumped forward to catch her, but she landed almost effortlessly. "Don't do that." he told her.

"Do what?" she said, raising an eyebrow, "Have fun?"

"I meant, you need to be more careful." he said.

"And you need to stop worrying so much." she said. They kept walking and at one point, Torunn found a low hanging branch and climbed up into a tree, again, without Thor noticing at first. She started to find branches close by and go from tree to tree, traveling up high. It amazed Thor how good of a climber she was.

"Torunn!" he called, after about five minutes of her traveling through the air. Torunn looked down at him, finding a branch that almost hung over him and sitting there, throwing her legs over one side.

"Yeah?" she said, swinging her legs back and forth.

"How did you start to think that I was your father?" he asked.

She frowned.

"Come down," he said.

Torunn didn't know how to respond, didn't want to explain it, so she looked around and up into the sky, trying to think of an excuse not to answer. "Hey, its getting dark." she said, "We should probably get back." Torunn faked a smile, running and jumping back into a tree. She stayed up in the trees the whole way back.

The day had gone by really fast, she thought, but then again, she probably slept late. Torunn didn't know why, but she was not hungry that night and she went straight to her room, not wanting to talk to anyone.

She dragged her bedside table in front of the bed, against the wall and put a vase on top of it. Then she sat of the end of the bed and aimed her hands at the vase. She willed the lightning to come but it never came. As she was about to give up, she tried one last time, growing frustrated and angry with herself, and an explosion of blue light erupted before her, knocking her back on the bed. It only lasted a few seconds, but it happened. When she got up and looked at the vase again, it wasn't there. There was instead an empty table with a huge black spot on the wall above it.

_It worked,_ she thought, _but now there is a burnt wall spot. Fantastic._

Torunn went to bed soon after and hoped that no one heard that.

Author's Note: Hey! Sorry I update almost every other day, but I have been really bored lately so I just write...anyway, please review and I hope you like it! If anyone had any ideas or anything they would like to happen, just tell me! I am absolutely open to suggestions! Thanks!


	10. Now I Know

Thor had no idea what was wrong with Torunn or why she had not shown up to eat anything. The Warriors Three, Sif, even Loki asked about her absence that night. He wasn't sure why, but even though she had only done it once, eating there without her now felt strange. Wrong. Someone should have been there, laughing with his friends, but she wasn't. He finished quicker than usual and bid them all good night, going to his chambers. He laid on his bed, but he did not sleep yet.

Thor thought about her in the woods. It amazed him how good of a climber she was. He couldn't think of any place where she would have gotten that much practice, since she said she had been in different foster homes for most of her life. But, she would have to stay somewhere in between foster families, right? She would have been at an orphanage. Then his thoughts trailed off, eventually landing on one adventure to Midgard, when he and Fandral had visited an orphanage and told them a story about a hunt in the Enchanted Forest.

There was one thing about the memory that stood out the most. That little girl. And her eyes, of course, so beautiful, the color of storms. He nearly jumped out of his bed upon realizing who she was. Torunn was the girl in the orphanage, the one being chased by those boys, the one who had fallen asleep in his arms. Torunn was the sad little girl who, for one night, he had loved as his own.

He got up and went down the hall to Torunn's room. He knocked and the door opened almost immediately. Torunn stood on the other side, seemingly shocked that Thor had come to see her again.

"Yeah?" she said.

"It was you." he said, looking almost in awe.

"What was me?"

"You." he said again, "At the orphanage." Torunn just stood there, wondering what he would do now that he knew.

"Yeah." she said.

"You never gave me answer,earlier." Thor stepped into the room and Torunn closed the door. "When I asked what led you to believe that you were my daughter."

"Well..." Torunn said, taking her usual place at the end of her bed. She looked up and noticed that the burned wall spot was right behind Thor, who had taken no notice of it. "you know I never got attached to any of the foster families, and I didn't have many friends other than John."

Thor simply stood, leaned back against the wall in front of her. She had not looked at him since he entered the room, and he wasn't sure why, but he really wanted her to. "And when Fandral and I came that day..."

"It just felt right." she said.

"Well, how did you know that it wasn't Fandral then?"

"Mostly your eyes." Thor raised an eyebrow. "His are lighter blue than ours. Plus, the feeling was different. He felt more like a good friend than a father."

She looked up at him then, and for a few seconds, his gaze was locked on her eyes. "Forgive me, but the way you acted towards Fandral when you first arrived did not seem anywhere near friendly."

Torunn let out a breath of laughter. "Taking that passageway must have affected my head somehow because I'm not usually like that."

"And _that_," he said, "is why I prefer the Bifrost. I wouldn't want to come home from a quest and slap Loki for no reason."

"Yeah, he'd probably magic you into something crazy."

Thor laughed. "But why didn't you tell me about this before?"

"What? Warn you about being turned into an animal?"

"No." Thor said, "Tell me that we'd met before?"

"Because me and Fandral thought we would hint around and see how long it took you to catch on. We were just gonna mess with you for a minute."

"It would have helped your argument a lot sooner though if you had just told me."

"Yeah, I know, but I also wanted to see if I could win the argument without it." Thor didn't understand the girls reasoning, but he didn't question it further. He really didn't understand the girl at all. But that was the purpose of their many quests, so he would just go along with the plan and try to learn more along the way.

He nodded. "Alright then. We will have to tell Fandral not to 'hint around' any longer in the morning." he looked around for a moment, eyes falling on the sword behind her in the corner of the room. It had been taken from her when the warriors caught her, but she had apparently gotten it back. "How good are you with that, if you don't mind me asking?" he gestured to the sword.

She turned around to look at it. "No." she said, she laughed and he just stared at her.

"What is so funny?" he asked.

"That thing isn't even real!" she laughed. He walked to the corner of the room and unsheathed the 'sword.' Wood. Really, Torunn?

"Why do you have it if it isn't real?" he asked.

"Ah I just wanted to look like I knew what I was doing." she said.

"Well, perhaps we should get you some real weapons. I doubt you will be able to do much damage with a wooden sword." he said, putting the sword back in its place.

"Yeah..."

"We could use some of the practice weapons in the court yard, teach you how to fight." he said, "Then we can get you real weapons to use on the quests."

"Yeah, I always kind of liked daggers." she said, smiling.

"Daggers?" he said, "Like Loki?"

"Yeah, just because you can throw them at people, or they can be for one on one stuff."

"A fair point, it is often the same with Mjolnir." Thor smiled too. "Well, alright. Sleep well, Torunn."

"Yeah, goodnight." she said. Thor turned and left the room.


	11. Beautiful and Powerful

The next morning, Thor was a bit late to get out of bed, so when he came down to eat, his friends were already together at their usual table. Torunn was across from Fandral, he Sif and Torunn all laughing about something, Hogun ate in silence as he often did in the morning, and Volstagg did not give himself time between bites to say anything. It would have been the same as almost any other morning in the castle, but he still had to get used to seeing the girl everywhere.

He came to his spot beside Fandral and began piling food onto his plate. Their laughter died down. "Alright," Sif said, "but say you were the one Loki transformed." she pointed to Torunn, "What would you be?"

"A kitten?" Fandral suggested.

Torunn smiled almost evilly. "Watch out, this kitty had claws!"

"Oh, believe me," Fandral gestured to his formerly scratched cheek, "I know." They broke into laughter again, and so did Thor.

"Thor," Sif said, noticing him for the first time, "What do you think you and Torunn would be should you both be made into animals?"

Thor thought on it for a moment. "Ah, I would be a lion. And Torunn...a hawk, perhaps? Or just a cat."

"Just?" Torunn said, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, a jaguar or something. Something powerful." Thor said through a mouthful of food.

"But still beautiful." Fandral added.

Torunn smiled. "Hawk or cat, I would still scratch you up if you piss me off!" Fandral laughed at that.

"Oh, Torunn," Thor said, swallowing, "We agreed you still need to be taught to use a sword, correct?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Perhaps Sif and I can help with that?" Fandral asked.

"Yes, I was hoping you would say that." Thor said, "You are the best swordsman in Asgard!"

Everyone laughed at that. "I do try."

They continued eating and Torunn eventually remembered to tell Fandral not to 'hint in' on Thor any longer. He seemed slightly upset that the "game" was over so soon. When Thor, Fandral, and Torunn finished, they went out to the courtyard. Apparently, sword training needed to start now. Like, right now.

Several hours later, Torunn and Fandral stood circling each other in the courtyard with wooden practice swords. He had already shown her basic blocking and striking. It reminded her of the play fights that she and the other children (although it was usually just she and John) would have with fallen branches. Thor had been sitting on a bench to the side, watching them. The girl was a pretty quick learner, and paid much attention to what Fandral was teaching her. She was very observant, but she also seemed to be straining herself a little, as if she absolutely had to learn this and she had to be good at it. Thor was pulled away from his thoughts when he heard someone hit the ground.

To his surprise, he looked up to see Fandral now sitting down. He still had his weapon in hand, but he was none the less on the ground, and he looked equally as shocked as Thor.

"You know, I think you have had enough lessons for today." Fandral said. Torunn laughed lightly and put out a hand to help him up. He took it and stood up.

"Were you going easy on her, Fandral?" Thor asked.

"Maybe. Maybe not." Fandral said, "Perhaps she is just naturally skilled."

"Maybe I get it from you." Torunn added, looking at Thor. Thor unintentionally shot her a glare and she almost jumped back, immediately regretting saying that.

"Well then," Fandral said, trying to break the sudden tension in the yard, "I'm not sure about you two, but we missed lunch today and I am hungry."

"Uh, yeah," Torunn said, "lets go." They turned and went inside, Torunn nodding her thanks to Fandral on the way. When they got back to the dining hall, not many people remained, but Sif and Volstagg were at the usual table talking. Sif and Volstagg smiled upon seeing them.

"So how was she, Fandral?" Sif asked.

"She actually did very good for her first time, considering." he returned, sitting beside Volstagg.

"Considering what?" Torunn raised an eyebrow.

"You are mortal."

"Half-mortal, remember?" Torunn took a seat beside Sif, across from Fandral, as always apparently. Thor scowled again, but she pretended not to notice.

"Half mortal or not," Fandral said, "She still managed to knock me down in the last round." Everyone but Thor laughed at that. He sat beside Torunn.

"Ah, you got her a few times." Volstagg motioned to a bruise on her arm. Thor poked it ans she jumped.

"Ouch! Hey, don't do that!" Torunn almost shouted. Everyone, except Torunn, laughed.

"I'm afraid you'll have to get used to that, my dear." Fandral said. Torunn just feigned anger and glared at Thor, who glared back. "Did we not come here to eat?" Fandral said, trying to end their glare-off.

Torunn and Thor looked up at him as if breaking from a trance and started piling food onto their plates.

They all finished quickly and went back to the court yard so Sif and Volstagg could watch Torunn and Fandral. This time, however, it was Torunn who landed on her butt.

Fandral grinned and pointed the tip of the wooden sword to her neck. "Do you yield?" he asked.

"Do I have a choice?" She said, grinning as well. He pressed the tip harder into her neck. "Okay, okay! Yeah, I yield, whatever." she said frantically. He threw the sword aside and helped her up, just as she did for him.

"You are very good." Sif said, coming over to them, "But you need to keep your feet apart. And do not let outside things distract you." Torunn had been a bit distracted, but not by of when Volstagg laughed a little to loud at something Sif said. She was distracted because she was all too aware of Thor's eyes on her, watching for every mistake, every flaw, everything that stopped her from being a perfect daughter.

"Okay," she said. Loki sat under a tree in the corner of the yard with a book, with next to no interest in them, and they, with no interest in him.

"Aside from that, you are good." Fandral said.

"Friends," Thor said, standing from the bench, "it is getting dark, and dinner will be served soon." Volstagg beamed and everyone else smiled, too. Fandral, Sif and Volstagg began a conversation of their own that was mostly based on food, from what Torunn over heard. Everyone was distracted, so she walked over to the bench where several weapons lay to the side, real and wooden. She grabbed a few daggers and stuck them in her belt loops, pulling her shirt down to cover them.

Thor lead the group through the halls while Torunn stayed in the back. At the entrance of the dining hall, Thor had joined the conversation, which had gone to how Volstagg never seemed to _not_ be hungry. Torunn decided that since it had only been a couple hours since she last ate, that she would simply stray from the group and go to her room.

She pulled the daggers out, having only grabbed three, and laid them on the end of her bed. She picked one up and threw it at the burned spot in front of her, hitting the far edge of the circle. She threw anther and came only a little closer to the center. She threw the last one, still only a little closer, and went to pull them out of the wall and stood at the end of her bed again, repeating the process. She did this late into the night, each one sticking into the wall with a dull _thump_, and every time, coming closer to the center.

_Thump, thump, thump._

_Thump, thump, thump._

She stopped when she hit the center six times in a row. She stood there at the end of the bed and looked at the wall, with the daggers forming a small triangle in the center of the circle. Then she decided she was done, and she pulled them out of the wall and put them in the back of a drawer in the dresser. She walked back to the burned spot and ran her fingers over the slits in the wall.

She climbed into the bed and went to sleep quickly, her last thought being of where they might be going in the morning.


	12. Late into the Night

The next morning, Thor awoke seconds before the sun began to rise. He watched from his window as the three moons faded away from the oncoming light of the new day. He soon realized he was not the only one watching the sunrise. There was a dull repetitive thumping coming from somewhere below him.

_Thump….thump….thump…._

There was a short pause as he looked around, confused, for the source of the noise. It was the same noise he'd heard coming from another room the night before, but he had been too tired to investigate then.

_Thump….thump….thump…._

Another pause. It came from directly below his window, in the section of the courtyard it over looked. He opened his window and almost leaned out of it to look down. In the dim light of the morning he could only make out a dark figure moving back and forth. The person stood still for a few seconds.

_Thump….thump….thump…._

During the pause, the person walked to the big dark blotch that was the tree in the yard. They stood by the tree, doing something to it, for a moment before returning to the original spot. After about three 'thump thump thumps' standing in the same place, the person would move about two feet back and restart. Thor had become so absorbed in watching the person's process, he failed to notice who they were until several minutes after the sun had risen enough to illuminate the yard clearly. After realizing the person's identity, he quickly changed into his regular armor and left his chambers to speak with them.

Loki stepped out of his chambers just as Thor did, looking very confused. Because they both had their minds on other matters, the two brothers nearly walked right into each other.

"Oh, good morning, brother." Loki said, still looking around.

"A lovely morning it is, Loki." Thor smiled. "Have you lost something?" he asked, smile fading.

"Yes, I seemed to have misplaced my daggers. Would you happen to know where they are?" Loki asked, looking up at his brother for the first time.

"I am sorry, I do not know where they are. Were you not practicing with them in the court yard before Fandral and I came?" Thor asked.

"That is where I had them last, however I checked late last night and they were not there." Loki was looking up and down the corridor still, as if his daggers might just be lying on the floor somewhere.

"Oh. Well perhaps I can help you look for them after breakfast?"

"That might be helpful." Loki said. Thor smiled and they headed down the corridor together. While they walked, Thor asked Loki if he, too, had heard the thumping noise the night before. Loki said he had, but that he had assumed Thor was just angry about something. At the entrance of the dining hall, Loki entered but Thor went in another direction. "Are you not going to eat, Thor?" Loki asked.

"Yes, but I have something I must do first." Thor said, walking away again.

"What is it?" Loki asked. Almost nothing was important enough for Thor to miss a meal.

"A small matter, Loki. Nothing important, I will join you in a moment." Thor turned again and walked away.

_A small matter?_ Loki thought, _No, this is no small matter. It is important._ He knew, however, that if Thor wanted to lie about it, he would not simply tell Loki what it was so easily. He made a mental note to find out later and proceeded to enter the dining hall.

"Good morning, Torunn." Thor said loudly, stepping out into the courtyard.

"Hey, Thor." She said, obviously done with whatever she was doing before.

"How long have you been outside?" he asked.

"Awhile." She said, yawning. Thor looked at the tree and saw that she had tied one of their archery targets to the trunk. There were also small slits in the fabric, but they were not from arrows. They were a bit wider than an arrowhead.

"Torunn, do you have Loki's daggers?" he asked, turning his attention back to her.

"No…" she stumbled and nearly fell down. Thor stepped forward and put his arms out in case she did that again. He looked at the target again and noticed that several slits strayed from the center. He would have assumed that they were from some of the first throws, but they were recent, so something must have caused her to become less focused. "Have you slept at all?"

"Not much…" she said, eyelids drooping as she struggled to stay awake. Thor noticed the slight bulge under her shirt and decided to take advantage of her nearly oblivious state. He reached down to both her sides and pulled the daggers from her belt loops. She glanced down briefly and kept her eyes on the daggers as they were pulled away from her.

"You will not lie to me again." He nearly growled, holding up one of the daggers for her to see. "You need to get some sleep now and I do not want you up this early again, either. Go." Torunn slowly headed off to her room and Thor went to find Loki in the dining hall. He let out a short laugh at the realization that he had sounded much like Frigga when Loki was in a similar situation.

He found Loki and his friends and returned the daggers to his brother. Thor looked up from his food moments later and noticed the crease in Loki's brow.

"Thor," he said, "I have six daggers."

"Dammit, Torunn." Thor grumbled as he stood. He almost ran to Torunn's room and knocked loudly on her door. Torunn opened the door slowly.

"Hm?" she said, rubbing her eyes.

"Where are the other three?" he asked, letting himself inside.

"The what?" she returned, still trying to sound like she did not understand.

"The other three daggers," he said. "Loki said he had six and you gave me three. Where are the others?" Torunn reluctantly walked to her dresser and pulled the daggers out of the back of a drawer. Thor took them from her and sighed. "I assume you were up all night practicing with these?" he asked.

"No…" she yawned again, "I slept for a couple hours…"

"That is not enough, especially not if we were planning to go somewhere today." He said. "And you do not have to steal Loki's daggers, we can get you weapons of your own from Nidavellir or from Asgard's own blacksmiths. You are in a castle, you don't have to steal anything. You need only ask."

Though she knew she would regret it, she asked anyway. "So can I ask if you believe me yet?" she raised an eyebrow. Thor only glared.

"You must rest." He said, walking out the door. "We will go somewhere tomorrow." He closed the door and went to Loki again to give him the other daggers. Torunn slept and hoped that she would not dream. The reason she had only gotten a few hours of sleep was that her dreams had been plagued with scenes of war. She almost could not close her eyes without seeing another horrible bloody scene. Asgardian bodies scattered over a torn up battle field, lifeless and beaten, some missing limbs, some with multiple stab wounds. Bigger bodies, those of Frost giants, also lay around limply with various wounds. Among the dead bodies, living Asgardians and Frost giants fought each other for who knows why, stepping on or over the dead or dying as if they were not even there.

She remembered the playful argument between Thor and Fandral a few days before when they were showing her around the castle. Thor had told him that, though Fandral was able to defeat him while sparring in the courtyard, he would 'beat him into the ground' into the battle field. Fandral had laughed and replied, "Let us hope we will not have to test that theory soon." Torunn had mentally hoped the same thing. She knew that, though she could hold a fight for a long while, if she were to go to war, she would not be among the survivors.


	13. A World So Cold

"Alright," Fandral said. "It is not possible for you to have learned to do that so well in only three days." He stared at the target in the middle of the yard with three wooden daggers very close to the middle.

"I...had some practice at the orphanage." Torunn said. And by that, she meant she had gotten very good over the years at throwing random objects at the other children during their 'wars.'

She and Fandral had come to the court yard after eating that morning to practice with a sword. At some point, after about an hour or so of swordplay, she showed him how to throw a dagger, even though he showed no promise for it.

Torunn knew she had slipped up during the last few throws, because she had noticed Thor watching from his window. Stalker.

"Well, you are very good, with daggers and a sword." Fandral said, pulling the daggers out of the target, "Your father will probably want you to have weapons for today, as you may actually leave Asgard today."

"Hm. Cool." she said. They went back inside and Torunn broke away from Fandral eventually to go to the Bifrost Observatory. Thor entered a few minutes later. "Do you watch people in the court yard a lot?" she asked.

"No, I just heard you and Fandral today and wanted to see what you were doing." Thor said. "You still need weapons, yes?"

"Yeah."

"Here." he handed her a sword. "You can use that just for today. We will get you daggers soon and eventually you can bring those."

"Where did you get this one?" she held up the sword.

"It was mine when I was younger." he said simply.

"So where are gonna go?" Torunn asked. "Fandral said you might take me away from Asgard this time."

"I thought we might go to Jotunheim." he said, as if it was nothing.

_Well, alright then, Dad_. She thought.

"Okay." she said.

"We probably won't find any Frost Giants, don't worry. But we will most likely find some wolves."

"Wolves?" she asked. _What's so important about wolves?_

"Yes. Wolves. There are also wolves in our forests but these are slightly larger." Thor said, turning to Heimdall. "Ready?"

"Yeah." Torunn went to stand in frost of Heimdall with Thor. She looked fine on the outside, but on the inside, she was scared as hell._ If he ever decides to take me there, I swear..._

Heimdall raised his broadsword and before she saw what he plunged it into, the falling/flying feeling came back. She _hated_ traveling like this. Not a second later, she landed in a pile of snow and fell backwards on her butt. Thor out out a hand, laughing as he helped her up.

"That may take a while to get used to." he told her. "The forest here is that way." He pointed in one direction with Mjolnir. They started walking, Thor in front, basically making a snow-free path for Torunn to follow behind. They walked through the thick, cold forest for a few hours before he finally put a hand out o stop her.

Torunn listened hard and heard something moving behind the trees, followed by occasional growling.

"Wolves." Thor whispered. The moment he said that, one wolf jumped out from the trees and Thor easily whacked it aside with the hammer before Torunn could even get a good look at it.

Then several of them came out at once. Everything that she learned about using a sword went oout the window. All she new was that she was surrounded by wolves and that she was stabbing them left and right. She could hear a dull bang beside her as Thor whacked them with his hammer. The banging slowly died away and soon no more wolves were coming for her.

She stopped and looked around for Thor. He was gone. "Thor?" she said. More rustling in the trees. Torunn held her sword out in front of her, preparing herself for more wolves. If there were more wolves close by, she never saw them. She felt something hit the back of her head and everything went black.

Torunn woke up to cold hands shaking her. Her eyes snapped open and several big blue men stood in front of her. Frost giants. Where ever she was, it was dark and cold and she could not make out many details. The back of her head throbbed. She tried to move her hands, but they were shackled behind her. She looked down to her side and the sword was gone.

Frost giants.

Unable to move her hands.

Sword is nowhere to be found.

Crap.

Though she knew it would do no good, she strained against the shackles. "Struggling will do you no good." One of them said. Suddenly a wave of pain washed over her. She cringed, determined not to cry out in front of them. "Where is he?"

"Who?" she said.

"Thor." the one closest to her growled. "We know he was with you."

"I don't know." she said honestly. Someone behind her that she didn't know was there pushed her down to her knees.

"Speak, child, and we may spare you." one said. Torunn stayed silent, her mouth clamped shut.

"If you do not wish to speak, then you will also not call for help. Gag her."

She struggled against them as she was gagged and thrown into a cell. Dungeon. Great. Asgard's dungeons were so much better. She heard the metal door slam shut and heavy footsteps leave the room.

Torunn could not sleep at all in that dungeon. She stayed in the corner, not daring to move at all. They did not feed their prisoners apparently. She had no way to know how much time had passed. When it was night and when it was day. But some time around what she thought was the third day, someone else appeared in the dungeon. Not a prisoner, she was never brought in, she just _appeared._

She appeared in the cell right beside Torunn. Just standing straight up in the middle of the cell, looking right at Torunn. She was tall, gray eyed, black haired, and her skin was pale with a slight purple tint to it. She wore a simple, but pretty, long white dress with sleeves that went past her wrists and almost hung down to her feet. A light elf maybe?

"Kristen." she said, her voice sounding perfectly smooth, but a million miles away.

"What?" Torunn said, trying to focus her eyes on the lady. She couldn't actually speak, but she could say it in her mind and somehow the lady seemed to hear her.

"My name is Kristen." she said again. The lady walked to the edge of her own cell, near the place where Torunn was leaned against the bars. "You are in pain, child." she said. Torunn didn't know if this was real, if she was seeing things from sleep deprivation, or if she had all of a sudden made up an imaginary friend who knew everything, or what.

"Who said...how do you know I'm in pain?" Torunn asked, almost getting defensive.

"Your mother is gone. Your father does not accept you. He has left this realm."

Suddenly, Torunn had a very renewed fear. "What? W-why is he gone?" she asked the lady.

"I do not know, child. He is again on Asgard. Do you wish that you had grown up on Asgard, Torunn?" The lady knelt down beside the bars to Torunn's level.

"H-how do you know...?" Torunn started to ask.

"I know all about you, Torunn." Kristen smiled sweetly. "I can show you what your life on Asgard would be like, if you want."

"How...?"

"Through your dreams, child. I send images through dreams, you know. I sent your friend the dream about the orphanage. I had hoped that when Thor found out, he would be accepting of you."

Torunn sat up a little more. "Why couldn't you send the memory to Thor?"

"Well, your father...he is a bit harder to get through to. I tried to tell show him your birth, fifteen years ago, in hopes that he would realize he had a child. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the vision through."

_So, she's saying Thor is hard headed?_ Torunn thought. _Amen, sister._

"I can show you what your life would be in an alternate reality, on Asgard. But, I must warn you, it will not all be good. I can start from the beginning. From the day he would bring you home to Asgard. If you'd like."

Torunn thought over it for a moment. She was sure she was hallucinating, but she liked what the lady was saying, real or not. Something seemed oddly familiar, but she couldn't quite figure it out. "Yeah." she said finally. "Send me some of those dream vision things."

"Alright," Kristen said, "Now, rest child. And I will send you your first vision." The lady reached through the cold metal bars and gently swept her hand over Torunn's eyes. Before she knew what was happening, Torunn was fast asleep.


	14. New Beginning

_ Thor landed on the Bifrost holding the baby tightly to his chest. He was walking a bit slower than usual, trying not to be loud or to stomp as he did, so as not wake her. He walked into the observatory where Loki and his mother were waiting._

"_I found a small child, what do I do now?" he asked playfully. Heimdall told him of the mortal woman's pregnancy nine months ago and he went down to Earth to get the child from the hospital. He managed to get out of the hospital and back to Asgard before the mortal healers could get her name and other information, so she would have no records of living on Earth. According to Earth's government, she did not exist. _

"_I would suggest being a father." Loki returned, coming closer to look at the baby._

"_You will have me and your friends to assist you, do not worry." Frigga said._

"_Does she have a name?" Loki asked._

"_She does not. I do not know what I want to call her." Thor looked up from the baby for the first time._

"_What about Torunn?" Frigga said. "It means thunder. Just like yours, Thor."_

"_Alright, then her name is Torunn." Thor said._

"_May I hold her?" Loki asked._

"_Not now, brother. I have only just gotten her. And besides," he looked down at her and smiled, "she is asleep."_

_ Thor knew he would have to see his father. Odin had not been very happy about the fact that Thor caused a pregnancy in the first place and had been rather bitter towards Thor for nine months. Thor also knew that Odin would not be happy that he took so long to get to the throne room, but again, he did not want to wake the child with his usual stomping and loud footsteps. Once there, he stood before the throne, rarely looking up from the sleeping child._

"_Father." he said._

"_Thor." the Allfather returned. "This is the child."_

"_Yes, father."_

"_What is her name? Did the mortal name her, or have you?"_

"_Mother helped me name her. She is called Torunn." Thor looked up at his father._

"_She will stay in your chambers, and when she is older, she will get her own. You will be responsible for caring for her, and so will your friends and brother, if they wish to help." _

"_Yes, I know."_

"_Go now." the Allfather said, dismissing his son with a wave of his hand. Thor turned and left, heading for his chambers._

Torunn slowly lifted her head at the sound of two guards hitting the floor. Dead. Both with knives in their throats. Loki ran in not a moment later and started trying to pick the lock to the cell door. There were the distant sounds of Thor's shouting and loud banging that was no doubt him putting good use to that hammer. Loki seemed to be having trouble with the lock. Thor came stomping in abd moved Loki aside.

He put the hammer down and ripped the cell door from its hinges. Loki entered the cell and untied the gag on Torunn. He also had no problem getting the shackles off of her wrists. As Thor waited for Loki to free her, he could not help but stare. Torunn was weak, obviously exhausted, and slow to move. They had to get back to Asgard fast. She would only slow them down if they let her walk.

"You will have to carry her." Thor told his brother.

"I know," Loki returned, lifting her up. "And you must be in front." They ran through the castle and out into the snow with Thor smacking down any enemies they came across, Loki following behind him and carrying Torunn. The number of Frost Giants they encountered at one time seemed to increase every time, and they turned up more often the further they went. But this went unnoticed by Thor, who was too focused on just getting back to the Bifrost site. Torunn could barely hear it, but there was also a familiar growling sound somewhere.

They were so close, almost home. Several Frost Giants surrounded them and Thor immediately went to work. If any got too close to Loki and Torunn, Loki stabbed them. But there were more than just the two if them could handle alone.

"Put me down." Torunn told Loki, as loud as she could.

"What? But you-"

"Put. Me. Down." she said again. Loki let her feet fall, helping her stand up.

"What are you doing?" Loki asked.

"Get back." she said. Loki took a few steps back, wondering what the hell she planned on doing. She put her hands out to her sides and willed the lightning to come. It worked when she got angry, so she tried to think of things that would make her mad.

Thor had left her in a dungeon twice now. Her head still hurt. She hallucinated in the cell and thought she was going crazy. She wanted to go back to Asgard and sleep, but the stupid Frost Giants kept getting in the way. Apparently, she would have had a totally normal Asgardian childhood if Heimdall had only-

Thor had not noticed Loki putting Torunn down, he was still beating up angry snowmen. But he noticed _that_. The lightning that came from nowhere. Striking down almost all of the Frost Giants surrounding them, except for three that remained, which Thor took care of with Mjolnir. When he finished them, he turned to Loki, who was no longer holding Torunn.

Thor looked down and a few feet in front of his brother, Torunn was on her knees, a soft blue glow slowly leaving her hands.

"Did she...?"

"I believe so." Loki said, helping her to stand.

"Let me." Thor said, lifting Torunn, who was obviously weakened by the use of power. "I can carry her now, you go in front." Loki took off in front of his brother and Thor followed behind. They found the Bifrost site in minutes with no more interruptions. Things glowed around all around them, and for a second, Torunn thought she was falling from Thor's arms. He only held her tighter, knowing how much she hated that feeling of falling. Seconds later, Torunn heard Thor land on something solid and start walking.

Torunn was put on her bed and felt Thor's arms slip out from under her. She knew it was hers because, on the opposite wall, she could see the burned spot in front of her.

"You need to rest, Torunn." Thor whispered. "I will bring you food when you wake." She heard him leave the room, trying to be quiet as he walked.

Along with food, she knew he would have many questions for her when she woke up. But she had to wonder if she would get any visions when she slept.


	15. I Did Not Leave You

_Thor sat alone in his chambers. Well, not _completely_ alone. The baby was there with him. He was on one of the many couches in his common room, watching her crawl around. She was eleven months old now and wanted to grab everything. Apparently, since she was half mortal, she would age like human until a certain point when her aging would slow to and Aesir's aging speed._

_ Torunn came towards him and pulled herself up to stand, holding onto the couch cushions. She reached out and tugged on Thor's pants leg. _

"_What is it, Tor?" he asked. "Tor" was what everyone called her. Frigga and Loki had been very helpful to him, and his friends would watch her if he ever had some other matter to attend to. _

_Often times, if she needed to be entertained, Loki would turn into a random small animal and run around, letting her crawl after him. He picked her up and let her stand on his knees, bouncing and laughing and Thor smiled. Some days, this was all he felt like doing. _

_ Thor's smile faded when there was a knock at his door. He got up, setting Torunn on the floor so she could crawl, and went to open the door. "Hello, Loki." he said, the smile returning to his face._

"_Hello," Loki said. "Have you eaten today? We did not see you at breakfast this morning."_

_Torunn tried to crawl out the open door and Thor held her back with his foot. "I have not. I can get some now if you will stay with Tor for a moment." _

"_Fine." Loki smiled and stepped into the room as Thor left. If he listened hard enough as he walked down the hall, Thor could faintly hear a puppy barking softly and a baby laughing. _

"She controls lightning? Just like you?" Sif asked at dinner that night.

"No." Thor said. "She does not control it, she..."

"We think she _creates_ it." Loki supplied. "It came out of nowhere."

"How she makes the lightning matters naught," Fandral chimed in. "But because of it, word of her has traveled all throughout the nine realms and everyone is now aware of Torunn Thordottir's existence."

"Are they angry?" Thor suddenly got worried, but he was not worried for himself.

"They are not. They are surprised, mostly." Fandral said. No one said anything for a while, busy eating. Until Loki looked up as if having a sudden realization.

"You know, it may seem to Torunn that you thought about abandoning her in Jotunheim." he said. Thor looked up at him, concern lining his face.

"She does not even know I left the realm." Thor said.

"Yes, but she was alone in the cell for three days." Loki pushed his plate aside, showing that he was done. "You may need to talk to her soon."

"And I intend to." Thor said. He pushed his plate aside as well and started putting food on another plate. "I need to ask her about that lightning." He stood, taking the plate of food with him, and walked to Torunn's room. He opened the door himself, assuming that Torunn would not want to get up. And who else came in her room anyway?

Torunn woke up at the sound of her door closing. "Hey." she said. She started to sit up, slowly, as if it required a great amount of effort. Thor knew that they did not feed their prisoners, and she probably did not know that she had been starved for three days. He put the plate down on her nightstand. He had to wonder how he missed the burned spot on her wall. And he could have sworn that there was a vase in the room before she came. What else was he not noticing?

"Did you sleep at all while you were imprisoned?" Thor asked.

"Yeah, once." she said. "Right before you and Loki showed up."

"I am sorry about leaving you alone there. I came back to Asgard to ask Heimdall where you were and to get Loki to help me."

"Okay." she said.

"What was that thing you did in Jotunheim?" he asked, taking his attention away from the burned spot. "How long have you been able to do that?"

Torunn sighed. "Awhile. I don't have much control over it, though, so I try not to use it."

"Oh. Well you could have told me about it. Again, it is another thing that would have helped in convincing me."

"Yeah...but I don't know much about aiming it or anything. And I didn't want anyone to get hurt."

"Ah. But now that I know, perhaps we can work on that. Not in the court yard, of course, but in the forest, maybe."

"Yeah...maybe." She said, picking up the plate of food that he brought her.

"Oh, are you hurt at all?" he came closer to her.

"They hit my head really hard, and I might be bruised a little, but nothing major." she said. For whatever reason, he hated the thought that anyone had hurt her.

"I am truly sorry that you were hurt. Has this discouraged you from continuing the quests?" he asked.

"Nope."

"Good. You need to eat and then rest, alright? It will be a few days before we go anywhere at all." he headed towards the door.

"Bye." she said. Thor closed the door behind him and left her. Torunn did not even finish everything on the plate before she was fast asleep.

"Was she hurt?" Frigga asked her son as they walked down the hall to her chambers.

"She said that she was not hurt, other than being slightly bruised and having been hit in the head once." Thor replied. "I brought her food and she is most likely sleeping now."

"Well, it is good that she is alright." Frigga said. "And have you made your final decision about her?"

"No, mother." he said. "Though the lightning incident was definitely something to think about, she could just be using magic."

Frigga sighed. "You must make a decision soon, my son. She may grow tired of waiting and demand that you give her an answer."

"Yes, I know, mother. I am still thinking. Goodnight." He said as they reached the end of the corridor.

"Goodnight, Thor." she said, disappearing into her chambers.


	16. Home Again

It took Torunn three days to convince Thor that she was okay and could go on another quest. And an extra day to convince him that she was not at all scared to go on another one after what happened the first time. She spent most of her time out side with Sif or Fandral. Loki had even begun to help her with the daggers when he got bored.

No matter if Torunn was training with or even if she was alone, she loved being out in the courtyard. Away from the noise in the castle, not very far from the forest that reminded her of the orphanage, it was peaceful. And lately, peace was not something Torunn got very often. She threw the last of the six daggers, just barely missing the center. She looked a little sad, but failed to notice that Loki was almost impressed.

"That was good, don't worry." he said, going to pull the daggers from the target. "You learn very fast. Perhaps today will be the day Thor takes you to get your own daggers."

"Yeah." she said, taking a seat on the bench. Loki sat beside her, both of them going silent for several minutes.

"Something is bothering you," he said. Torunn looked up suddenly. "What is it?"

Torunn did not answer for a moment. "You believe me, right? About being Thor's kid?"

"Well, yes." Loki said. "Actually I believe Thor is now the only one who has yet to realize the truth."

"Then why doesn't he?" she asked quickly, not realizing how much sadness was in her voice. Had he not been Loki, there was a chance her wouldn't have heard it, but he was always more perceptive than his brother. He sighed.

"I think that by now, his only reason for not believing you is simply that he does not remember your mother." he said. Torunn did not look convinced. Loki set the daggers aside. "He is close, though. He is fond of you, and he brags, occasionally, at the table about you." Torunn's eyes seemed to brighten at hearing this, he noticed, making the stormy color more beautiful.

"He brags?" She sounded almost disbelieving that someone could like her enough to _brag_.

"Oh yes." Loki said, "About you fighting the wolves, and he teases Fandral about you defeating him with a sword after your first lesson. He says that if in the end, you are his daughter, then he will be very proud to be your father." Alright, so he lied about the last part. But Loki was the Prince of Lies, the girl seemed very happy to hear it, and it was most likely what Thor was thinking as he tried to find reasons as to why she _wasn't_ his.

Loki glanced up and waved his hand at someone. Torunn turned to see Thor waving back from his window. She wondered if he could hear them from up there. Loki stood, putting his daggers back onto his belt. "Well, I am hungry and I imagine Thor will be down for breakfast soon. I will tell Thor that you are getting better with the daggers. And perhaps soon I will start to show you how to use them in battle. Alright?"

Torunn stood and smiled. "Yeah. Okay."

"Hello, mother!" Loki smiled.

"Hello, Loki." Frigga said, stepping out onto the grass. "Helping Torunn with the daggers?"

"Yes, she is a very fast learner." Loki said, gesturing to Torunn.

"That is well." Frigga smiled.

"Well, I am going to join Thor for breakfast." Loki said, taking his leave. Frigga nodded and waited for Torunn to go in before following beside the girl.

"Hello, Torunn." Frigga said. "How are you faring?"

"Oh, I'm fine." Torunn said. "Still a little bruised, but I'm good."

The Queen smiled. "That is well. I don't suppose Thor's thoughts are troubling you?"

"Thor's thoughts? Like about whether or not I'm his? Nah," she lied, "we've only gone on two missions so he hasn't had much to go on."

"It is good that you are not bothered by it," the Queen stopped to smile at a passing servant, "but I do not think that such quests like the last one are what you need to best show him who you are."

"What?" Torunn said.

"Well, I just think that while you are showing off your fighting skills when you do things like that, you are not focusing on things that actually show more about you. I know that in the forest, you spoke to each other. And he told everyone about your amazing climbing skills."

"Yeah, I guess I get that." Torunn nodded.

"So, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind going back to Midgard, to the orphanage." The Queen said. "He would probably enjoy seeing your home and you could possibly see some of your friends."

"Yeah, I would like to see John again."

"John?"

"Yeah, John. He was my best friend in the orphanage. He got adopted into a good family, though, right before I left. I think he has an older brother now." Torunn smiled at the memories of John.

"Well, I will speak with Thor about it after breakfast, and we shall see if you will go anywhere today."

"Okay." Torunn smiled before breaking away to go to her usual spot. She talked and laughed with the others, but she did notice that Thor was not beside her like he usually was. Up at the head of their table, Thor sat beside Frigga, who was beside Odin. Frigga and Thor were talking, and she knew why. The Queen looked up and smiled upon noticing Torunn. Odin noticed her and glared. Torunn just continued eating. She was used to being glared at, and she didn't exactly expect the Allfather to like her anyway.

When Torunn was done eating, she got up and started to walk back to her room. Thor noticed her however and gestured for her to come over to them. She did so and kept her eyes on either Thor and Frigga to avoid even a glance at Odin, who could have glared a hole into the side of head, had she not been expecting it. Or had she not been so used to it anyway.

"Hello." Thor smiled. "I think we can go to Midgard today, if that is what you prefer."

Torunn rubbed the back of her head, where she had been hit several days before. "Yeah. That'd be cool."

"Great." Thor said. "Then we can go as soon as I am finished." Torunn nodded and went back to her room. She started to think about what she would even do when she returned to that orphanage. She would probably play with the little kids the whole time. And they'd most likely want her to play a song on her guitar that she left there. They loved it when Torunn did that. She knew how to play a song by Taylor Swift song, and that was they're favorite one to hear.

Before she knew it, there was a knock at her door and she knew exactly who it was. "Hey Thor." she said. "Are we ready to go?"

"Yes. I assume you want to go to the orphanage first?" he asked, smiling.

"Yeah. I wanna see if the fort is still in the corner." she said, smiling in return as she entered the hall way and closed the door behind her. They walked to the Bifrost observatory and Torunn waited as Thor told Heimdall where to send them. She and Thor went to stand in front of Heimdall and he raised the broadsword. Torunn jumped a little when she felt Thor grab her arm. The strange feeling that she hated came back and she squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see the blur of colors that was supposed to be galaxies. They landed within seconds and he let go of her arm. She realized that he had done that so she would not fall on her butt this time.

"Well, here we are." he said. "We landed a not far away from the orphanage, but I trust you know how to get there." And she did. Torunn had run away from almost every foster home she was sent to, if they didn't bring her back themselves, so yeah, she knew how to get there from several _miles_ away.

"Yeah, I can." she said as she started walking. Second's later, they heard the sound of someone landing from the Bifrost behind them. They turned quickly to see three people standing there on top of the rune covered site. Sif, Fandral, and Loki started to walk towards them. Thor was very happy to see them and ran, arms open wide. Torunn however, remained where she stood, obviously confused. They four others came back to her moments later.

"I hope you do not mind, Torunn," Fandral said, "but I wanted to come to the orphanage again and Loki and Sif decided that they would like to come to. Is that alright?"

"Yeah, absolutely!" Torunn smiled and kept walking. She confused them a lot because she did not take the normal way to the orphanage. She was winding between houses, going the way you would go if you were trying to avoid being seen by your soon-to-be-ex-foster-parents. Or the police.

When they were almost there, Torunn felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned quickly, fully prepared to punch their lights out, so used to being chased through this path by people she did not like. But the person moved aside and caught her fist just as easily, having made the mistake of underestimating her one too many times in the past.

"Nice to see you, too, Tor." he laughed. He was not very tall, chocolate brown hair, and a little pale.

"Hey, John." she laughed as well. He let her hand drop and turned to the strange looking group behind her.

"Hey, hey!" John said, spreading his arms. "Long time, no see, Thunder God!"

"You are John?" Thor said, smiling and extending a hand.

"Yep, that's me." John said, shaking his hand. "And I know you!" he gestured to Fandral. "But I do not know the rest." Fandral said.

"Well, John," Thor said, he started pointing to each of them as he spoke, "These are my friends Sif, Fandral, and my brother, Loki."

"Well, hello then." John stopped to shake hands with each of them, "Hey, where's the guy that ate like three pigs without stopping?"

"You mean Volstagg?" Sif chimed in. "He and Hogun did not come today, I'm afraid. He said his wife was cooking and he did not want to miss it. Hogun is just not much for traveling if it is not for an important purpose."

"The purpose for now is to see Torunn's home." Fandral said. "The second time for Thor and I."

"Hm. Alright. Well, its right this way." John turned to Torunn and they both grinned. "Just try to keep up. With that, they took off running side by side, occasionally glancing back to see if the Gods _were _keeping up. And they were, so Torunn and John picked up the pace. They ran around the back and through the great mass of bushes that stood on the side of the back yard, knowing it would take the Asgardians a moment to realize where they'd gone..

John picked up several rocks and started to throw them up at a window on the third floor. Seconds later, a colorful cloth rope with several knots in it was thrown from it.

"Daniel still keeps the escape rope?" Torunn asked as John climbed onto the rope.

"Yup." Torunn started to climb up after him. "Just in case you came back and wanted to get in this way." It was not your average window escape rope made of a bunch of tied up old clothes. They had two shirts or pants or whatever per link so it was twice as strong and two people could be on at once. They decided to do that the first time it ripped behind Torunn and Daniel had fallen and broken his ankle. Good times.

They got up very quickly, having had a lot of practice with this thing. John and Torunn pulled it in and Daniel tucked it into the one empty drawer, positioning it so that, to the untrained eye, it would appear like normal folded clothing. John rushed to close the window, shutting it just as the Asgardians ran into the yard. Daniel was still blonde haired and perfectly tanned, as always. Thor would love him.

"Think we got away." Torunn said.

"Yep." John said.

"Hey, Tor!" Daniel said, "Where ya been?" He wrapped her in a tight hug.

Torunn laughed and hugged him back. "Hey, Daniel. I kinda had to go and find my Dad."

"Your Dad?" Daniel broke away, confused.

"Um...I'll explain in a minute or two. Hey, don't you have a brother or something now?" She turned to John.

"Yeah, his name's Robin." John smiled a bug, goofy smile, and Torunn knew exactly what he was about to say. "We're little John and Robin Hood!" he said, laughing.

"Uh, guys?" Daniel said, peering out of the window, "The Renaissance Fair just went around front."

"We need to go let 'em in." John said.

"Yeah, and warn Ms. Ava." Torunn said as she and John rushed down stairs with Daniel close behind.

"Ms. Ava!" All three of them exclaimed at the same time. Torunn and John jumped past the last four steps while Daniel slid down the rail. The lady turned quickly, eyes going wide.

"Torunn, oh you're alright!" the lady said.

"Yeah, yeah, and I brought a few friends." Torunn said. She could hear the sound of metal hitting the concrete porch outside the door and knew that Thor told them that they all had to put their weapons down outside. "Listen, remember those guys that came here about 10 years ago and told me and Daniel and John a story? Yeah, them and their friends are back for the day. Costumes and all."

"Oh, well are they going to tell more stories?" the old lady asked.

"They should have some pretty good ones." John said as he opened the door. The four Asgardians walked in and were surrounded by kids almost instantly. Thor, Sif and Fandral loved it, but Loki looked very confused.

"Hey is the pillow fort still up?" Torunn asked John.

"You mean the castle? Yeah c'mon!" he grabbed her wrist and led her back up the stairs. Like he said, the pillow fort was still there. It was bigger than last time and there were small stuffed toys scattered everywhere, probably the remaining wreckage of a previous 'war.' As she was looking around, trying to see how much she remembered, a small stuffed elephant hit her in the side of her face.

Torunn turned quickly, grabbing a nearby stuffed dog and throwing it as hard as she could at John, who was running along the wall on the other side of the room laughing. Daniel ran in, dodging a cat and picking up his own ammo. He casually joined in the battle while continuing to ask what came in to ask.

"So, Tor, which one of those guys is your Dad? Please tell me its not Reindeer Games." he launched the elephant at John.

"Nope, actually its Feathers." she said.

"Thor? Wow."

"That explains how she can make stuffed animals hurt!" John said as he was hit right in the face with a Valentine bear.

"Okay, but who's the Xena chick? She's kinda hot." Daniel said.

"Uh, that's Sif. But don't try anything with her. You might loose a hand."

"Well, I do like my hands attached." Daniel jumped out of the way of a huge Easter bunny. They continued running, jumping, dodging, and hurling toys at each other for a good fifteen minutes until the door opened and Fandral was hit in the face with a He-Man action figure.

"Hey! Its Tor's boyfriend!" Daniel said, a little too loud for Torunn or John's liking. "Wassup, Robin Hood?"

"Hello." Fandral said, nodding briefly to the boy before turning his attention back to Torunn. "Thor thought you could show he and I the forest in the back and Loki would like to know if there is a library."

"Okay, gimme a minute." Torunn said.

"Hey can we come?"John asked. "I'd love to race you up a tree."

"Yeah, sure." Torunn shrugged and grinned. "Beat you down stairs!" And the three crazy teenagers took off. "Library's upstairs!" Torunn yelled to Loki as she ran out the door. Sif had placed a child on Loki's head and the kid was holding onto the horns and enjoying the ride.

Torunn, John, and Daniel started jumping up into trees and racing to the top while Thor and Fandral ran beneath them, trying to keep track of them. From the ground. At one point, Fandral decided to jump into one and start climbing with them. They showed him how to go from tree to tree and jump between branches and stuff, but about five minutes later, he fell down and decided he was done climbing for the day. Torunn and John ended up being right beside each other.

"Hey, so if you were adopted," she asked, "why were you going back to the orphanage?"

_Did he run away?_

"Nah, I won't runaway from this one." he said. "I just like to visit the place sometimes. Plus, I had a hunch you might be here. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," they both stopped to stand on the same branch. "Why?"

"Nothing, you just seem a little tired is all." He jumped down just as the branch under them broke. John hit the ground a second before she did, both of them landed effortlessly, and Daniel soon did the same, landing a few feet from them. Both Thor and Fandral looked amazed and Thor looked very scared, probably because Torunn could have broken something from that fall.

"Okay," Daniel said, breaking the awkward silence, "So do you guys wanna go back? We've got another half hour before it gets dark."

"Yeah,"

"Sure,"

"Fandral and I will stay behind. We'll come back when its dark." Thor said. Fandral looked very confused by this, but did not argue.

"Okay, see you in a little bit." Daniel said.

"Hey Dan!" John said, "Bet money I can beat you _and_ Tor to the front door!"

"Oh, its on!" They took off again in the other direction and Thor, for what ever reason, watched them until they turned the corner and were out of sight. Daniel reached the door first, with Torunn not a foot behind him. John crashed into the back of her, sending all three of them to the ground. They laughed and went inside. Sif was giving everybody piggy back rides back and forth in the front room.

"Where'd Snowflake go?" Daniel asked.

"Upstairs." Sif said. They ran upstairs to the library. Loki was in the corner in a big fort made of books with two kids insude with him. The children across the room had a small arsenal of paper airplanes and were throwing them into the book fort. Loki and the other two were hastily trying to grab the airplanes out of the air and throw them back before ducking behind the cover of the books.

"I think they're okay," Daniel said.

"Hey, Tor," John said as Daniel closed the library door again. "I got something for you." He ran into he and Dan's room and came running out with acoustic guitar. It had little lightning bolt stickers that had started to peel years before. "Just like you left it. Hoped you might play something when you got back."

Torunn smiled and took it from him, playing with the fray edge of a sticker. "Yeah, lets go." They went back down stairs and as soon as the little kids saw that Torunn Hawkins had found her guitar, they cheered and ran to sit in a small crowd in front of her. Torunn leaned her back against the wall in front of them. Loki and the few kids with him stuck their head out of the library door to see what all the noise was about.

"Is she going to play?" Loki asked.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" One of them said. They dragged Loki down the stairs to join the small audience.

"C'mon, Torunn!" John said.

"What do you wanna hear?" she asked.

"Hey, play Soul Sister!" Daniel said.

"Counting Stars!" someone suggested.

"Round Here!" John said. Torunn laughed and started playing something.

"Heeeey, Heeeey, Heeeey," she sang, "Your lipstick stains, on the front lobe of my left side brains, I knew I wouldn't forget you, and so I went and let you blow my mind." She continued singing the whole song.

"Thor," Fandral said in the woods, "Its getting dark. We should go back." They started to walk back to the orphanage. When they walked in several minutes later, they expected playful chaos, but instead everyone, even Loki and Sif (Sif was holding one child) were gathered in a small crowd. Thor looked to the side and Torunn was leaned against the wall with an instrument. And she was _singing_. And she sounded _good_.

"Oh man I said I'm under the gun" She sang, "...Round here. And I can't see nothin'...nothin'...around here." She stopped and looked up as the kids cheered. Fandral went to sit beside Loki and Thor stood behind him. "Hey, John, you were probably about ten when this one came out, you should remember it." Torunn started playing something else on the guitar. "We were both young when I first saw you, close my eyes, and the flash back starts," Apparently all of the kids knew what it was, because they cheered again and started to sing with her. Eventually she stopped singing but kept playing and let them sing it. It was Love Story by Taylor Swift.

"'Cause we were both young, when I first saw...you." Torunn sang the last part. The kids cheered again.

"Torunn, I'm afraid we have to go now." Fandral said.

"Aw, are you leaving already?" John said, doing his best puppy eyes and hugging Torunn.

"Yeah, I'm sorry." She said. "But keep my guitar here." she handed it to him, "I will definitely come and visit again and you better know what you want me to play."

"Okay," John said.

"Well," Fandral said, "It has been wonderful, John and Daniel. But we must get back home."

"Hey, can you still lift me up with one arm?" Daniel asked him, latching onto Fandral. Fandral lifted him as high as he could above his head.

"Woohoo!" Daniel said.

"Fandral." Sif said. Fandral put Daniel down.

"Alright. Now we really have to go." he said. They walked out, picking up their weapons on the way and headed back to the Bifrost site.

"I like your friends, Torunn." Fandral said as they followed the somewhat worn path between the houses.

"Yeah, they're cool." she said.

"I suppose you'll want to come back and visit King John again soon?"

"Yeah," Torunn stepped onto the Bifrost site beside Fandral, Thor and Sif standing in front of them.

"Heimdall!" Thor shouted. Things started to glow and in seconds, they were in the observatory again. Fandral had to catch Torunn when she started to fall.

"Alright?" he said.

"Yeah, thanks." she stood up straight and regained her balance.

"Friends, we have not eaten since breakfast." Thor said.

"Lets go, then!" Fandral said, following Thor to the dining hall. The others followed after them.

They ate and talked about the day, and Torunn told them a bunch of stories about her childhood in the orphanage with John and Daniel. She only included the fun parts, though. Loki wanted to know what the small paper things were that the children in the library were throwing at him. Thor got her a piece of parchment she used to show them how to fold a paper airplane. Then she threw it and accidentally hit a warrior in the back of the head. They all laughed and eventually Torunn decided to go to bed. Thor stopped her in the hall way when she was almost there.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." she said. "Why does everyone keep asking that?"

"Thor!" Sif said, gesturing for him to follow her.

Thor sighed. "I'll tell you in the morning. Go to bed." He followed Sif in the other direction.


	17. The Calm Before the Storm

Thor paced back and forth in the Bifrost observatory, Torunn's safety at the forefront of his mind. Fandral ran in, being the last of the Warriors Three to arrive.

"Have they declared war?" he asked.

"No." Thor said. "Not yet. I was not thinking when I took Torunn there."

"Well, what do we do?" Sif asked. "What if they attack?"

"They may not attack. But we must do nothing to anger them." Thor said.

"Shouldn't someone tell Torunn?" Fandral asked. Thor stopped pacing and turned to him.

"Yes. I will go to her in a moment." Thor started to walk out, but turned back. "Have any of you noticed anything about Torunn since she was in Jotunheim?" All of them paused and thought for a moment.

"She was skinnier for a while, but that was because she did not eat for three days." Volstagg said, as if it was the worst thing that could happen to a person. Thor glared at him.

"Yes, but that was several days ago and it is no longer a problem." Thor turned to the rest of them. "Anything else?"

"Are you worried for her, Thor?" Sif asked.

"Well, yes, she-"

"She is your daughter." Sif finished. They all knew it, even Thor, but he refused to believe it.

"Are we sure she has been sleeping?" Loki asked. Everyone turned, surprised upon hearing his voice, having almost forgotten he was there. "She did stay up one night, practicing with the daggers, that night that she stole them."

"Torunn told you about that?" Thor asked, almost embarrassed.

"Yes." Loki said. "But she can obviously stay awake for awhile if she has a reason."

"Alright, fine." Thor said, walking out. He went to her room, trusting that she actually went to sleep. He did not want to wake her just yet, since it had only been a few minutes since she went to bed.

Thor sat in a chair facing the side of her bed. Her eyes move under her eyelids and she moved occasionally. Torunn was dreaming.

"_Daddy! Daddy!" Torunn yelled, running as fast as she could down the hall. Thor stopped walking and turned around. She ran into him and hid behind his leg._

"_What's wrong?" Thor asked. He looked down the way she had come and a small boy came running to him as well. He was red haired, blue eyed, and looked a bit taller than Torunn. Somehow, the boy did not see Thor until he was only a few feet away. Torunn was still cowering behind Thor, and he noticed that her little blue dress was dirty._

_ The boy looked up and skidded to a halt upon seeing who that girl was calling 'Dad'. He fell back and scrambled to get up, turning to run. _

"_Stop, boy." Thor said, loud enough to make the boy jump. The boy turned slowly and walked back to them. "Torunn," he whispered, "come here." Torunn shook her head, not taking her eyes off of the boy. "What is your name, boy?" Thor asked._

"_E-Erinlian...sir." the boy said hesitantly, staring at his shoes._

"_Look at me, Erinlian." Thor said. The boy looked up at him, obviously scared, an he was right to be. "Are you making fun of my daughter?"_

"_N-no, sir." the boy said. Then a second later, "Yes, sir. B-but we didn't know who she was, sir, and-"_

"_Well, now you do." Thor said. "Do not let this happen again. Go."_

"_Y-yes, sir." the boy said, turning and walking away, running when he was farther away. Thor knelt down, gently pulling Torunn out from behind him. _

"_Torunn, are you alright?" He asked. "Are you hurt?" Torunn shook her head slowly. Thor picked his four year old daughter up and carried her to her room. He sat on her bed, placing her in his lap. He lifted her face to look at him. "What happened, Torunn?"_

"_They made fun of me..." Torunn whimpered. "They called me names." A few tears escaped her eyes and she moved her chin out of his hand. "They called me a mistake." She buried her face in his chest._

_Thor waited for her to look up before speaking again. "Listen to me," Thor said, "you are not a mistake."_

"_But Loki said you didn't want to have me..." she whined._

"_Loki was wrong. It was not my intention at the time." he said. "You were only unexpected, that's all. But that does not mean I love you any less." Torunn smiled a little and Thor wrapped her up in a hug. He raised an eyebrow at feeling someone tug hard on one of many small braids Torunn had put in his hair earlier that morning. He pulled away and saw Torunn with a goofy grin on her face and he laughed. "Stop that." he said. "I bet you're hungry and Volstagg made a lot of food this morning. Lets go." He lifted her again, running down the hall towards his friends._

Torunn awoke slowly, not wanting the dream to end, and realizing that she didn't feel rested at all. Thor was sitting beside the bed, watching her. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "How long have I been..."

"Half an hour." Thor said. She was still tired, though. It seemed like having the visions sent to her took up energy, so she slept but didn't get a lot of actual rest.

"You were dreaming," Thor said, leaning in closer. "What of?"

Torunn hesitated. How do you explain something like that? "Ah...nothing..." she said.

"It isn't nothing, Torunn. Tell me." Thor said.

"You."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you." Torunn said. "And me. On Asgard."

"What happened?" Thor said.

"Um, a kid was picking on me and I ran to you." She replied, really wanting to get off the subject.

"Oh. Alright." Thor sat back in the chair, as if upset he didn't get a better response.

"What were you going to tell me? You know, about what didn't seem right with me?"

"Are you sleeping okay?" he asked, a little awkwardly.

"Uh...yeah, I guess so." She stood and leaned against the bed post.

"Are you sure?" Thor said. "You do not seem to be rested at all."

"Yeah, I'm fine." She said.

"Does the time in captivity bother you?" he asked, leaning forward again.

"No. I'm okay." she crossed her arms over her chest. "Really."

"It's alright if it does-" he started.

"I said I'm fine! And I don't need your help!" she yelled, actually making him jump. Thor stared at her for several seconds, almost in disbelief that a child had dared to raise their voice to the future king of Asgard. But she had. A little mortal girl had yelled at him.

"I will not have a mortal girl raise her voice to me." Thor did not yell back, he said it quietly, slowly walking towards Torunn as he spoke. The stories of Thor's anger were well known and one thing you never wanted to do was anger him. This, she decided, was scarier than if he had yelled at her. This was the calm before the storm. Thor came closer, towering over her, and Torunn started to back away. Her breath hitched when she felt her back hit the wall and she pressed her self as hard as she could against it.

Torunn knew he didn't know much about her past experiences in foster homes. He didn't know about some of the specific reasons she had run away from some of them.

He slowly pressed his hands against the wall beside either side of her head, taking no notice of Torunn's trembling. The girl couldn't even bring herself to look up at him anymore.

"Cowering before an enemy is a weak, cowardly thing to do. And you are a weak, cowardly little mortal. I could kill you in the blink of an eye. Those who dare to defy me, who dare to anger me, suffer. I could do the same to you without a seconds hesitation." He leaned in closer, making his face level with hers. He took her chin in one hand and forced her to look at him. "So do. Not. Make. Me. Angry."

Torunn could not bring herself to speak, so she simply nodded, cursing the whimper that escaped her when Thor roughly let her chin go and backed away. He left the room with a bit of regret in his heart, but he ignored it. She had dared to raise her voice to him, and he gave her a fair warning about what would happen next time.

Torunn, on the other hand, did not even move from her spot in the corner for several minutes. She had sunken down the the ground and hugged her knees to her chest, wide eyed and unsure of what to do. He hadn't hurt her. That was good. But he had also made it very clear that he could. And that he wouldn't lose any sleep if he did.

_I feel so loved_, she thought.

She eventually stood and slowly got into bed. She grabbed a pillow and hugged it as tight as she could. She would not cry. She would not cry. She would not cry. She. Would. Not. Cry.

Torunn got up a few minutes later she locked the door and started looking around the room. Looking through all the drawers and anywhere where there might be extra sheets or something. The two bottom drawers of the dresser were filled with sheets and blankets. The others had several simple dresses so she grabbed a few of those as well, throwing all of it onto the bed. Torunn did what she, John, and Daniel had done while making the first escape rope, tying all of it together in one long, _long_ rope. She didn't double it up like the current escape rope, though. They'd made that improvement because there was usually more than one person on it at a time and it needed to be stronger. Since she would be the only user, she decided not to waste cloth on doubling it.

Finally done, she looked over her work for a moment before tying one end tightly to the bed post and throwing the other end out of the window.

Torunn sat on the edge of the window,throwing her legs over first and grabbing the rope to her side. She turned over, coming away from the window and latching her legs into the rope, completely relying on it now. She looked up, peeking above the edge of the window once more before starting to slide down the rope, kicking off of the wall as she went. This was not a climb down from a few stories up with a fairly okay landing below her and at least one friend to watch her. Now, she was leaving a castle, with a longer drop below her and no one to watch out for her.

Torunn stopped moving and held on for dear life when the rope started to move down by itself. She could hear something moving across the floor of her room. The bed had moved. Crap.

There was a rather loud crash as the bed hit the wall, and there was no doubt that someone heard that. But it was still now and she didn't have much more to go. A minute later, she was on the ground and she started to walk away. She walked until she reached the forest. Torunn's legs were burning by then and she had to stop and catch her breath. She mentally cursed herself for doing what she had always done. Runaway.

Torunn always ran. She never cried. Crying was a form of weakness. She was never very open about her past or her feelings. She did run, though. She ran from her problems, from the abusive situations she was in. She had run from the only home she had ever really known to come here and find her father. That plan was failing. Her real father was no different from the other 'father' figures she had known. Again, she felt the sting of tears in her eyes, and there was a slight burning feeling in her hands. She willed that to go away, she could not give away her location by letting lightning loose. But she could not find a way to get rid of the threat of tears.

Torunn ran further into the forest, eventually stopping and falling to her knees.

She would not cry. She would not cry.

She stood, hands clenched at her sides, eyes squeezed shut, and punched the tree in front of her, bark flying all around her. As she pulled back, ignoring the pain in her hand, she saw that she had made a small crater in the tree. She noticed the blood that stained the wood and looked down, cursing at her bleeding knuckles.

She turned, sliding down the tree until she sat at the bottom, back leaned against the trunk, ignoring the bark poking her back. She hugged her knees to her chest again.

She would not cry. She would not cry.

Torunn leaned her head back, eyes squeezed shut again and stayed that was until she fell asleep.

_Torunn ran through the back door, gripping the back pack strap that hung over her shoulder so tightly her knuckled turned white. The sun was just setting, the orphanage was north of here, so she needed to go right of the house. It was not a home. Just another house._

_She'd been there for 3 weeks and about four days after her arrival, the foster father revealed his alcohol problem. Jason was his name. And Jason had passed out several minutes earlier on the couch. But not before taking a few good whacks at her. She had a scrap above her eyebrow, a cut lip, and she no doubt had several bruises under her clothes._

_Torunn cringed upon hearing the screen door slam shut, knowing that he would wake up soon and come after her._

_She started running, though she was hungry as hell, and several minutes later, there was a black pick up truck following her, swerving a lot, and she could hear a very angry man's voice yelling harsh things at her. _

_She sped up, soon jumping the fence to the old playground, running across the basketball court and jumping the other side. She reached another cluster of houses and glanced back, seeing the headlights of the only car out right now and kept running. She heard the engine stop behind her and the car door open. She cursed under her breath._

_Now, even though Jason was a drunk, he was fast when he wanted to be. Faster than her. She continued winding through the houses, hoping to confuse him._

_She could hear his pounding foot steps behind her, but she was so close. She could just barely make out the big white sign in the front yard of the orphanage. She gasped when she felt something pull back on the back pack, so she quickly wiggled out of it and took about two or three steps before she was slammed into a wall._

_She knew who it was and made one last attempt to run but Jason's hands slammed into the wall beside either side of her face. She whimpered slightly as he leaned in, his face inches away from hers. _

"_You tried to run away from me." he growled. She nearly gagged at the horrible smell of alcohol on his breath. She saw his hand fly up and took a blow to the side of her head before everything went black._

Torunn woke up screaming. That was definitely not a vision. It took her a moment to realize where she was and remember what she had done the night before.

She did not want to remember it. Not the night before or that night when she was 13. That was her last foster home. She had woken up in the hospital, having apparently been found by whoever lived in the house they had been outside of. Ms. Ava was in the room, and so was John, who had begged her to let him come. He also had a bag of gummy bears that he'd gotten from the cafeteria. She was told later by the nurse that she had been asleep for all off the following day and that she had just woken up in the middle of the night. She also had several cracked ribs and some of the cuts were deeper and more serious than she'd realized. That was one of the reasons she had been so afraid of Thor the night before. But of course, he didn't know that.

She jumped up upon hearing someone running not far from her. No, more than one person. Maybe three?

"Torunn?" someone shouted. Sif. What was she doing out here?

Loki appeared from behind the tree, glancing at Torunn before turning his head and yelling to whoever else was with him. "Here!"

Loki turned back to Torunn, looking her up and down. He pants were dirty, she had a slight purple color under her eyes, and her knuckles were bleeding. Also, her eyes were alight with fear, for what reasons he did not know.

"Is Thor with you?" she whispered, intending for it to come out a little louder. He only shook his head as Sif and Fandral appeared behind him.

"Torunn, what happened to you?" Sif asked, looking over at the tree, the dent in it, the blood on the bark, and to her hand, knuckled covered with dry blood. "Did you do this?" It came out in a gasp.

Torunn started to back a away slowly.

"What is wrong?" Fandral asked, coming towards her.

"N-nothing." she said, shaking her head. She didn't know why, or even where she thought she was going, but she turned and ran.

Torunn turned quickly upon feeling someone's hands around her waist, punching them in the eye. Loki. His hand flew to his face and she took off again.

"Torunn!" Sif shouted from behind her. Not very far behind her, she noticed. When she heard Sif get close enough, she turned, bringing her right elbow across her jaw. Then she lifted her leg and kicked her hard in the stomach, making Sif fall back. She didn't even know why she was doing this. She was scared. And they were Asgardians. They were bigger, stronger, smarter, they could hurt her. She had to fight to protect her self.

Last but not least to make an attempt at stopping the girl was Fandral, not being the fastest of the three, but being the strongest. He simply grabbed her wrist and spun her around too fast for her to do anything before he was holding her still by both wrists. She intended to bring her knee straight up, but he moved his leg slightly to block it. "If you do that, by the Norns, I swear I will personally send you to Jotunheim."

Torunn struggled and tried desperately to break away from him. His grip on her wrists tightened until it hurt, where she winced and stopped.

"We are not going to hurt you." he continued. "Calm down." She heard movement and glanced behind him to see Sif and Loki walking towards them. She whimpered and started struggling again. Fandral's grip tightened again, harder this time, hard enough to make her cry out a little. "Sorry." He let his grip loosen again.

"We are not going to hurt you, either." Sif said.

"Now, what is the problem here?" Loki sounded less concerned and more upset that he'd been punched.

A couple tears escaped her eyes.

"Torunn, what is wrong?" Fandral asked again, softer this time.

"N-nothing..." Torunn said.

"It's not 'nothing' if you are acting like this." Loki said.

"Loki." Sif hissed.

Fandral sighed. "Will you tell me later? Please?" Torunn nodded slowly.

"Good." He let go of her wrists completely. "Now we have to go an tell the Queen that we have found you.

Torunn took another step back. "W-where is Thor?"

All of them looked confused. "Thor is at the palace." Fandral said.

"He went to the training grounds after breakfast this morning," Sif said, "but surely a servant was sent to bring him back and tell him about you." Sif and Loki turned and started to walk away. Fandral put an arm around Torunn's shoulders and started to lead her away as well. As they walked, he took her hand and ran his thumb over her scraped knuckles.

They reached the edge of the forest and were met by three horses. Sif and Loki rode on their own while Torunn had to ride sitting in front of Fandral.

When they got back, Frigga came running towards them, or walking as fast as the could in her dress and heels. They all jumped down and Frigga was in front of Torunn immediately.

"Are you alright? Where were you? Oh, you had us so worried!" she said. Most people would have gotten annoyed and pushed her away, but Torunn had never really had a mother who worried so much over her, so she allowed it.

"I'm fine." Torunn smiled. "Where is Thor?"

"Oh, I sent a servant to retrieve him from the training grounds. He should be here soon."

Torunn nodded.

"She was in the forest, asleep." Fandral said. Frigga turned to him, noticing Sif and Loki's bruises for the first time.

"Oh, what happened to you?" she said, coming to them.

"Um, Torunn was a bit...shaken when we found her." Sif said. "She was not aware of who we were at first. But we are fine."

"Is Thor mad?" Torunn asked. Everyone turned back to her, confused by the question.

"I...do not believe so." Fandral said. "Why do you ask?"

Torunn suddenly became very interested in her dirty boots. "N-no reason."

It was strange but they soon forgot about it, because Thor was approaching.


	18. Fear Me

"Where was she?" Thor asked.

"In the forest." Loki said.

"What were you doing out there, so late at night?" Thor turned to her.

"Nothing. I just couldn't sleep." Torunn said.

"Apparently not." Thor stepped forward but she stepped back. Thor reached out quickly and grabbed her hand, looking at her scraped knuckles. "How did this happen?"

"I..." Torunn started.

"A sparring accident." Fandral said. Thor looked at him. "She only took a bad fall."

"Oh." Thor said, dropping her hand. "Torunn, I must speak with you."

Torunn's eyes went wide but no one seemed to notice. Thor grabbed her arm and started walking away. She was pulled until they reached the corridor where everyone's chambers were. Torunn yanked her arm away, regretting it almost immediately. But Thor didn't do anything, just glared for a moment.

"What do you need to talk about?" she asked, trying to sound like she had no idea what the problem was.

"I am not sorry for what I did last night, I'll start with that." he said. Torunn rolled her eyes and started to go to her room but Thor pulled her back again. "And what you have to understand is that you cannot raise your voice to me. Ever."

"Why not?" Torunn asked, knowing she would probably get in more trouble for it.

"Because I am the future king of Asgard!" Thor shouted. Torunn jumped slightly, but did nothing else.

"And I will not have a mortal raise their voice to me!"

"You're yelling at me!" Torunn shouted.

"Because you are beneath me!" he yelled back. "I am more powerful than you could ever be! And I am more important!"

Torunn didn't wait for him to say anymore, she ran into her room and slammed the door shut behind her. She was hungry because she hadn't eaten that morning. But she ignored that.

The bed was in the back of the room, against the wall. She dragged it back to its original spot and untied the rope from the bed post, pulling the rest of it back in from outside. She did the same thing they did with it at the orphanage, tucking it into a drawer so that it looked like normal folded clothes.

Torunn didn't want to leave her room for the rest of the day. She didn't care if she didn't eat. She just didn't want to have to see Thor. She crawled into bed and tried to go to sleep.

_Thor could not sleep that night, for what reasons he did not know. So he walked the halls of the palace, alone aside from the guards. He had gone in a circle, now coming back to his own chambers. He entered and laid down once again, hoping to find sleep this time. Just as he started to drift off, there was a barely audible whimper from the room beside his. Torunn's room._

_Thor stood and bolted from his chambers into Torunn's. He forgot to slow down as he entered, so as not to scare her. As a result, the small girl nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of her door flying open. _

_It took him a few seconds to find her, blocked from view by her bed. She sat with her back leaned against the side of the bed, holding a pillow as close and as tightly as her little arms would allow. Thor walked around the bed, trying to quiet his footsteps. For a moment, he had no idea what to do. Torunn looked...well, terrified. Her cheeks were soaked with tears and she was shaking. He picked her up quickly, sitting on the bed with her in his lap, placing the pillow in its original place. _

"_Torunn, child of mine," he said, trying to soften his naturally loud voice, "What is wrong?"_

_Torunn whimpered again before opening her mouth to explain with a shaking voice. _

"_I-I had a nightmare," she said. _

"_Oh no, what of?" Thor asked, holding her closer in an attempt to stop her shaking._

"_T-the Frost Giants...they attacked and I was alone and I called you...a-and you wouldn't come..." she rambled on, fresh tears falling from her eyes. _

"_Shh...shh..." Thor whispered, wiping tears away with his thumb. "It was only a dream. They will not get you. And I will never leave you alone."_

_Torunn gripped his shirt and buried her face in the fabric. Thor held her close and stroked her hair, unsure of what else to do. Frigga would be better at this, even Loki would know more about it._

_So, for right now, he just held her, his hold strong but gentle. He waited until the crying and shaking subsided. Until the sobs turned into sniffles, turned into slow breaths._

_Torunn soon fell asleep, but he did not leave her. He laid down, although scrunched up in her small bed, with his little girl beside him, held close to his chest._

When she awoke, there was a knock on her door. Torunn got up slowly, not wanting to open it, but also not wanting it broken down, either. So she opened it, surprised to see Fandral there.

"Hello, Torunn." he said, putting on one of his charming smiles. But it didn't last long.

"Hey," she said, opening the door wider. He stepped in and she closed it again.

"You said you would tell me what had you so upset earlier." he said, taking a seat in the chair beside her bed while she sat on the side of her bed.

"Right..." she said, drawing the word out.

_How do I put this nicely?_, she thought.

"Did Thor do something?" Fandral asked. Torunn looked up, surprised that he had guessed that. "It fairly easy to see how nervous you were around him earlier."

Torunn nodded.

"Did he hurt you?" he asked.

Torunn shook her head.

"But he scared you. And said harsh things to you." he continued.

"Yeah..." she whispered. Fandral leaned in closer.

"What did he say?"

It took a second for Torunn to get the guts to respond. "He...he said that I was weak and cowardly. A-and about an hour ago, he said that I couldn't raise my voice because I was beneath him."

"He said that when he took you inside?"

Torunn nodded and stared at her boots. "And he...said that he could kill me without hesitation if I made him mad again-"

"He said he could _kill_ you if you angered him?" Fandral interrupted, absolutely shocked that Thor would say that.

Torunn glanced up and nodded slowly.

"No. Surely he would not. He worries for you and he loves you." Fandral said, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. "He would do no such thing."

"Okay," she said.

"But I doubt that is what made you so scared in the forest. There is something else that bothered you, yes?" he asked.

"Y-yeah...just a memory. A really bad memory." she said.

"About a foster home?" he asked. Again, she had to wonder how he guessed these things. "Ms. Ava let some things slip at the orphanage. She mentioned that you didn't want to do foster homes or adoption any longer because of all of your bad experiences with those families. I guessed some of them may have been abusive?"

"Yeah..." Torunn said.

"You remembered one of those times and when Thor scared you, you thought of it. And then there were other Asgardians around you after you had just woken up from remembering a very bad time." Fandral said. It was impressive to her, how good he was at this. "Us chasing you did not help the situation."

"Not really." she smiled.

"Well, then I am sorry about that." he said. "I think I need to have a talk with Thor or Frigga about this, if that is alright with you?"

"Uh...yeah, okay."

"Are you certain?" he asked.

"Yeah, that'd be fine."

"Alright. Then I will do that. I imagine you are hungry. I could eat with you now if you wish to avoid Thor for the day."

"Yeah. I don't really wanna see him right now." Torunn admitted.

"Well then," Fandral stood and offered her a hand. "Lets go." Torunn took it and stood.

Thor walked the halls, heading to the Bifrost Observatory. He passed Frigga first, who decided to walk with him. They came in and were met by Fandral, leaning against the wall and looking a bit concerned about something.

"Fandral?" Thor said. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes." Fandral stood up. "Torunn told me some things in the dining hall minutes ago."

"Oh?" Thor said. "And what did she tell you?"

"She told me why she went into the forest-"

"Good, th-" Thor started.

"I was not through." Fandral said, crossing his arms over his chest. Thor raised an eyebrow at him, but he just continued. "She also told me what you said to her last night and after she got back this morning." Then, Thor looked a bit worried. Frigga was looking at Thor expectantly.

"What was bothering her, then?" Thor asked.

"The fact that you yelled at her. And when you did so, she was reminded all too much of something from her past."

"Well? What was it?" Thor said.

"You know that she was in several foster homes on Earth. And that most of them were not all that pleasant, yes?"

"I tire of your guessing games, Fandral." Thor said. Why wouldn't his friend just tell him what was bothering his da- Torunn?

Fandral sighed. "Many of them were abusive, but one in particular haunts her memories. When you were yelling and you cornered her," Frigga's disappointment in Thor became more evident with each word Fandral said, "she was reminded of it and it frightened her to the point where she did what she's always done- she ran away.

"You know, I find it highly unlikely that _you_ figured all of this out alone." Thor spat, not wanting to believe any of it.

"Torunn explained much of it in the dining hall." Fandral said, still standing with his arms crossed. "But she fell asleep in the forest and dreamed of the very abusive man. She was injured the night she escaped him. She awoke screaming and scared. She confused, and angry, and afraid and she probably needed to be alone for a moment when she woke. That is why she attacked us at first."

"She was abused?" Thor almost whispered in disbelief.

"Yes." Fandral replied. "And on top of all of this, when she returned to the palace, you pulled her aside and told her that you were not sorry for your actions the previous night and that she was below you. And that you could kill her without a moments hesitation." Fandral gave a small nod when he was done. That was the whole story.

"Thor!" Frigga hissed beside him. "You told her you could _kill_ her?"

Thor looked down at his mother, finally seeming to feel guilty for all of this. "Well, yes. But only if she angered me like that again. And I would never _really_ kill her!"

Fandral cleared his throat. "Torunn does not seem to think that."

"Thor, you go and apologize to her." Frigga said. "Now."

"Wait, you said she was injured that night." Thor said.

"I did."

"How badly?"

"She did not tell me that much." Fandral said.

"Heimdall?" Thor said, unsure if he would have the answer.

"She was sent to a hospital," Heimdall said, "but I do not know of her exact injuries."

Thor nodded and left.

Torunn opened the door to find Thor there, who didn't bother to say hello before coming into the room.

"Come on in," Torunn grumbled.

"Did you think I would actually kill you?" Thor asked.

"Yep." she said flatly.

"Why?" he asked.

_Seriously?_ She thought. "Because you said it while looming over me with your hands on the wall, giving me absolutely no escape."

"And when I did that, you were reminded of a foster father?" Thor turned to her.

"Yeah."

"Well, I am sorry for saying that. I would never really hurt you."

"Okay." Torunn said, leaning against the wall.

"Okay?" Thor raised an eyebrow.

"Yep. Okay." she said again. "Apology accepted."

"Are you sure?" Thor asked.

"Yep." she lied.

"Alright. Good." Thor said, not expecting it to be that easy. "I have two questions that neither Fandral or Heimdall could answer."

"Okay, what is it?" Torunn said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"What injuries did you have when you awoke in the hospital after your escape from the abusive man?" Thor asked.

"You mean one of many abusive fosters?" Torunn said. "I have several deep cuts and a few cracked ribs. I also had a head ache for two weeks from that last blow to the head. Next question."

"Alright, do you...have...scars from all of this?" Thor asked, a little uncomfortable with the question.

"Yep." She said. "Most of them are on my arms or back."

"Oh. Alright. Uh...sorry." Thor said, walking towards the door.

"Yeah, bye." She said, tempted to push him out the door and slam it behind him. Thor left quickly, feeling as if something was off. It still didn't seem like she was telling him everything. But, it also seemed like she wanted to be left alone, so he would comeback later.

Torunn was not at all ready to tell him everything. He still scared the hell out of her. She decided that she liked dreamland much better than this current reality. She laid in the bed for hours until night finally came and she found sleep.

_There was a banquet in celebration of a small victory of Thor and his friends. It was only a fight with a band of thieves in the forest, who were now in the dungeon, but it was a victory, nonetheless._

_Thor had sent Torunn to bed a couple hours earlier, because she was five and Asgardian banquets did not take long to become full of drunken men and women. _

_And yet, Torunn walked the halls, looking for the dining hall. She'd had a nightmare, not as bad as they usually were, but it still scared her and she wanted her father. Torunn walked as quietly as she could, staying close to the wall, passing servants and other people who came to the celebration. When she found it, she stood peeking in from around she doorway, watching every laughing and talking and drinking. _

_It did not take long to spot Thor, given that he was one of the loudest men there. He sounded angry at someone, but seconds later, he noticed her. He stopped talking with one of the men and tugged on Fandral's sleeve, taking Fandral's attention away from a very pretty lady. Thor pulled him closer so no one would over hear what he said. A moment later, Fandral nodded and stood, leaving behind several upset maidens as he approached Torunn. _

_Fandral didn't say anything at first, only gently lead her out, with Thor watching them until they were out of sight._

"_Why are you awake, Torunn?" he asked, kneeling down to her level once they were in the hallway._

"_Nightmare..." Torunn whispered._

"_The same as always?"_

"_No...Daddy came this time..." she said, thought she did not seem very happy about it._

"_That should be good, right?" Fandral raised an eyebrow._

"_Daddy is scary when he fights." Torunn said, her eyes sparkling with tears about to spill over._

_She would not cry. She would not cry._

Wait, that wasn't her thinking...was it?

"_Oh, no..." Fandral said. He had seen Thor fight many times, and in battle, he could be very scary._

_And for his daughter to see that for the first time... "Let's go back to your room and you can tell him about it in the morning, alright?"_

_Torunn nodded slowly. _

"_Good. It'll be alright." Fandral said, standing and starting to lead her down the corridor. They started down one way, but Fandral could hear yelling and assumed there was a drunk fight going on. _

_He sighed and started to go the other way. They would have to go all the way around to get to the stairs. But as they turned the last corner, so close to the stairs, Torunn jumped back, hiding behind Fandral. _

_Thor held a man up against the wall by the lapels of his shirt. _

"_Thor..."Fandral said quietly. Thor was obviously very drunk. He slowly turned his head to look at them, taking a moment to realize who they were. He dropped the man, simply letting him fall to the ground, taking a few seconds to stand and running with a slight limp. Thor held a red bottle in his hand, and took one big sip before throwing to the opposite wall, where it shattered and broken glass fell to the ground. He took a few steps towards them and Fandral backed up, knowing Torunn was behind him and that she would move any way he did, as long as there was someone to guard her._

_In his drunken state, Thor thought that Torunn was afraid of Fandral. "Get away...from her." he slurred._

"_No, Thor. I am trying to get her upstairs to her room." Fandral said. Thor stepped towards them again, and Torunn whimpered behind Fandral._

"_Get away from...Torunn..." Thor said, stepping up so that he was face to face with Fandral._

_Fandral kicked out behind him slightly. Torunn saw him do it but it was too quick and small a movement for Thor to notice at the time. That was her signal to go. _

_Torunn ran the other way, soon hearing Thor's loud footsteps running behind him. She would never outrun him. She ran as fast as she could and turned the corner, hoping that there would be someone on the other side to help her. Only, someone managed to grab the back of her nightdress and pull her towards them. Definitely Thor._

"_Thor!" Fandral yelled from further away._

_Torunn's back was to him, but she knew it was Thor. She could smell the alcohol on his breath and she almost gagged. She had never been around a drunk man in her life, yet she somehow knew the smell._

_Then, in a voice that wasn't his, Thor growled: "You tried to run away from me..."_

_Torunn's eyes shot open and she sat straight up in a bed, gasping for air. She cried out and went straight back to laying down, due to the sudden pain in her chest. John and Ms. Ava appeared, leaning above her. But her sight was a tiny bit blurred and when she tried to look around, she did it slowly. It felt like this wasn't real._

_Her hand went to her stomach and she ran her fingers over the scars that were there. Her head was pounding, her ribs hurt, and there were several random spots on her back, arms, or legs that stung, as if they were cut._

"_Torunn?" John said, putting a green gummy bear in his mouth a few seconds later._

Torunn woke up screaming again, sitting straight up, one hand felt her ribs and the other went to her face. Her ribs didn't hurt to touch. Good. And when she pulled her hand away from her lip and eyebrow, there was no blood. Good. But she was still gasping for air and totally confused. At least she wasn't in the hospital this time. It was still dark out side. The door opened and Thor entered. Torunn's eyes widened in fear and she threw the blanket away from herself, scrambling back and falling off of the edge of the bed.

He came closer and she whimpered, making him stop. "Get away from me..." she said, her voice sounding rough and scratchy from her dry throat. Loki and Fandral appeared behind him. Loki lightly tugged Thor back while Fandral came closer to Torunn. She did not shy away from him. He had not hurt her.

"Thor, do not get closer." Loki said, trying to pull his brother out of the room. He put a hand on Thor's chest, barely pushing him back.

"Why?" Thor protested.

"Because she is obviously afraid of you right now." Loki said, finally getting Thor outside the door and closing it, leaving a small crack.

Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun stood in the hallway, waiting for an explanation.

"She only had a nightmare." Loki said. They all seemed a little relieved to hear that she wasn't hurt. "Sif, stay with us, Hogun, Volstagg, you can leave." They simply nodded and left.

"Was that not what she sounded like in the forest?" Sif asked.

"That was how she sounded. I think she may have had the same nightmare or a similar one." Loki said.

"Why is she afraid of me?" Thor said.

"Fandral explained at supper about her problem with Thor and the foster father. Perhaps it is still scaring her." Sif said.

"No. Torunn told me earlier today that she was no longer bothered by it after I apologized and assured her that I would not actually hurt her." Thor argued.

Loki sighed. "Brother, Torunn lied to you." Thor turned and glared at Loki. "After what happened, she may be very reluctant to tell you certain things."

"You will have to wait until she feels that she can be open about it." Sif said.

"She has still lied to me." Thor said. "There are still things that need to be mended."

"Yes, but they will have to wait until morning." Loki said, yawning. "She is obviously not afraid of Fandral, and he will take care of it." Loki went a few doors down, entering his own chambers and Sif did the same. Thor, however, stayed outside Torunn's door until her shaking breaths had calmed down before going back to sleep.

Fandral approached Torunn slowly as Loki led his brother away. Once the door was closed and she could no longer see Thor, it was much easier to calm her down. He just put his arm around her shoulders and kept whispering reassurances that no one was going to hurt her and that she was safe. Once her shaking stopped and her breathing returned to normal, he hugged her once and stood to leave.

Torunn whimpered as he got further away and he stopped and turned, walking back to her.

"Are you still afraid?" he asked. She nodded slowly. He sighed. "What if I wait here until you fall asleep? Would that be alright?" She nodded again and got into her bed while Fandral sat in the chair beside it. She was on her side with her back to him. When her breathing became slow and steady and she did not turn or shift for several minutes, he got up and left as quietly as he could, thankful that Loki had not completely shut the door.


	19. The High Road

Torunn awoke from a dreamless sleep. As soon as she did, she felt guilty for having woken everyone up so late the night before. It took her several minutes to tell herself to get out of bed. As she crossed the room to leave, she got the sudden feeling that she should look in the mirror, thinking that she would see her cut lip and the scrape above her eyebrow. Torunn ran to the mirror at the thought, relieved to find that she had no cuts.

When she did leave the room and start to go to the dining hall, she realized that everyone now knew of what had happened to her. And Thor would be there. And he would know that she had lied to him. And he would be angry. Her eyes went wide with sudden panic and she started to turn around, intending to run back into her room. However, Fandral and Sif were walking down the hall, towards her. If she ran now, they'd stop her. Crap.

"Torunn!" Fandral said as they stopped. Sif only smiled.

"Y-you...you all know..." Torunn said.

Sif's brow cinched. "Well, yes."

"It changes nothing between any of us, do not worry." Fandral said.

"But...but Thor..." Torunn said, still in slight panic. "And everyone else..."

"Torunn," Sif put a hand on Torunn shoulder, "Calm down. It does not change anything and Thor will do nothing else to you. We will make sure of that."

Torunn nodded slowly.

"Now, we best get to the dining hall before Volstagg eats everything." Fandral said, putting on one of his charming smiles, which were apparently contagious, because Torunn and Sif could not help but to smile as well.

They walked to the dining hall together while Torunn tried to calm herself.

"I trust you slept well after I left?" Fandral said, breaking the silence between the three of them.

"Yeah, fine." Torunn said. "I didn't dream again, so that's good."

"I suppose." Fandral said, sitting down at their usual table. Torunn sat across from him and Sif took a seat beside Torunn. Volstagg and Loki were already there.

As they started piling food onto their plates, Sif spoke up, asking what they had all been wondering about since the day before. "Torunn, I know you probably do not want to talk about it, but why did you not tell us before?" Though the others tried not to make it seem like all the attention was now on Torunn, they failed and looked up at her at the same time.

"I...I just didn't know how you'd react..." Torunn said. "Or how Thor would react."

"Why would his reaction be bad?" Loki asked. "He would not have hated you for it, and he would have known better than to get so angry with you."

"Well, I ran away from all of those houses." Torunn said. "It was the cowards escape, but it was all I knew how to do. I always run...I don't stand and fight...I-"

"Torunn, they were grown, violent men. You were a child." Fandral said.

"You should not have had to make that sort of decision." Volstagg said, everyone seemed a bit surprised to hear him speak while he was eating, but they said nothing about it.

"No one blames you for running from those situations." Fandral put a hand on her shoulder. "You did what you had to. And now you are safe with us." Torunn smiled.

"Hey, where is Thor?" she asked, her smile fading a bit, but not disappearing.

Sif pointed to the head of the table, where Frigga and Odin sat. Thor was again beside Frigga. They were talking about something that seemed to have Thor very concerned and Frigga worried. Torunn watched them and occasionally, Odin would try to say something to Thor and Frigga would shake her head and tell Thor something different.

"What are they talking about?" Torunn asked, thinking out loud by accident.

"Most likely you." Loki said. "Thor was very confused as to why you were afraid of him last night."

"Did you tell him that I lied?" Torunn asked, fear laced in her voice again. Everyone looked up again, previously unaware that she'd had an opportunity to lie to Thor.

Loki sighed. "I did. And he wanted to find out why. He will most likely ask today and I suggest you have an answer."

"Well," Sif said, giving Loki a disapproving look, "I did remind him that you may be reluctant to tell him certain things."

"Yeah..." Torunn moved her plate away and stood, heading to the courtyard. She simply practiced with the daggers for a while. Several minutes later, Loki, Sif, and the Warriors Three came out. She could hear someone walk over to the bench and pick up a sword. They walked towards her from behind, trying to sneak up on her. Torunn tensed up and Sif threw her a wooden sword from the side.

She grabbed it out of the air and turned quickly on the person behind her, blocking Fandral's attempted high attack.

They started fighting while Loki went to sit under the tree and read and the others sat on the bench, watching them. Something was wrong, though. Even Loki looked up from his book to watch. Something was definitely still bothering Torunn because Fandral was barely managing to block most of her attacks. Had they been using real weapons, Fandral would probably be dead.

Fandral glanced up to see that Thor was was watching from his window again. The next thing he knew, he had no weapon and he was on the ground with Torunn standing above him, the tip of her wooden sword against his neck. Fandral threw his hands up in surrender and Torunn threw the sword aside, turning and going back inside without a word.

As Torunn left, Loki noticed Thor moving away from his window. "Should someone go and speak with her?" Fandral asked. Loki stood and started to follow Torunn.

Thor assumed Torunn was going back to her room, so he waited by the door. Torunn came up the stairs a minute later, turning as soon as she saw Thor. He went after her, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder and turning her to face him. All Torunn did was try to keep a straight face.

"You lied to me." Thor said. Loki peeked around the corner, deciding to stay hidden after seeing that Thor had already caught Torunn. Torunn's bottom lip quivered, giving away the fact that she was scared.

"But," Thor added, "I am not angry at you." In truth, Thor was very angry, but he tried not to show it, for fear of scaring her again. He let his hand slip away from her shoulder. "I am sorry for acting the way I did. Am I forgiven?"

Torunn nodded. "Yeah."

"Are you lying again?" Thor asked.

"No."

"Are you still afraid of me?" Thor took a step towards Torunn, raising an eyebrow when she backed away.

"No." she said, voice shaking. Thor turned, causing Torunn to back into the wall. He was going to hurt her, he would yell at her again, he would do something.

"Then why do you cower before me?" he asked, trying to keep himself from stepping closer like he did the last time.

Torunn looked down, unable to hold his gaze for very long. "I don't know." she whispered.

Thor took a step back. "I was wrong to say that you were beneath me, Torunn. I should not have frightened you so."

Torunn glanced up at him. "B-but you...I am mortal, I shouldn't have yelled at a prince, I-"

"No, Torunn."

"Yes!" Torunn said quickly. "It was my fault, I shouldn't have done it a-and I should have told you about the foster homes and-"

"Torunn, stop." Thor said, louder this time, making her shut her mouth. "None of it was your fault, and it was up to you when you would tell anyone about what happened. I am sorry." Torunn could not think of anything to say, so she simply nodded. Thor did the same, turning and leaving the hall, planning to go to the courtyard, where his friends were. He did not even notice Loki, who had used an invisibility spell.

Loki stepped into the hall way, where Torunn just stood in the same place. She didn't look scared anymore, but she had a lost look in her eyes, like she had a million things running through her mind at the same time.

"I assume you will go to the forest again?" Loki asked. Torunn jumped upon hearing someone else, but nodded after a moment, turning to leave. Loki did not stop her, but he followed her out of the hall way, breaking away eventually, to go to the court yard with Thor and his friends. He'd only followed her in the first place to make sure Thor did nothing to hurt her.

"You saw the way she was hacking away at Fandral, something was still bothering her, Thor." Volstagg said.

"Yes, I know." Thor replied. "But I stopped her in the hall way, and I believe I have set things straight."

"Correctly, this time?" Fandral asked, raising his sleeve to inspect another bruise. Thor rolled his eyes.

"Yes." Thor said. "Did she go to her chambers again?" He turned to Loki.

"No, she said she was going to the forest, I do not know when she plans on returning." Loki said, taking a seat on the bench.

Thor only nodded and turned back to Fandral. "Did she say anything about her nightmare?"

Fandral shook his head. "I do not know what it was about. But I assume it had something to do with you, otherwise she may not have been so scared when she had only just woken up."

"But I suggest that you not go after her in the forest just yet, Thor." Sif spoke up. That was actually exactly what Thor had been considering doing. "She may want to be alone for a little while."

"Well, last time she wanted to be 'alone for a while' she returned scared and starved and she hurt you all." Thor argued.

"She was afraid of _you_, Thor." Fandral said, voice raising only a little, not enough to be yelling jut yet. "She did not eat because she was afraid of what you may do to her if you saw her in the dining hall. And she hurt us because she had just woken from a horrible dream and was under the impression that we, too, intended to hurt her."

"I never intended to hurt her!" Thor shouted, stepping closer, tempted to call Mjolnir to him.

Fandral stood. "That is not what you _said_!" Fandral said, daring to shout at him. "You said you would _kill _her-"

"I said I _could _kill her!"

"Brother!"

"Fandral!" Loki and Sif said in unison. Loki and Volstagg had gone to pull Thor away from Fandral, and Hogun and Sif had done the same with Fandral.

"We are all friends here and Torunn is not hurt." Volstagg said.

"Both of you need to calm down." Sid added. Thor and Fandral were still glaring at each other, but they backed away, shrugging the others hands off of them.

"She is your daughter." Fandral said. "You can decide what you say to her, but you should not hurt her."

"You should not have even given her the impression that you would hurt her." Loki said from behind Thor.

"What is this, Fandral?" Thor asked, almost tauntingly. "Do you like Torunn?"

"No, but Torunn is a young girl, and she is damaged." Fandral said.

"Just because you comforted her nightmare, does not mean-"

"I only had to do that because she was afraid of _you_." Fandral said. The others started to pull Thor and Fandral away from each other again.

"Brother, perhaps you should go somewhere else for a moment." Loki said, guiding Thor back inside. Sif and Hogun pulled Fandral back towards the bench. He watched Thor's back as he left with Loki.

Torunn did not bother to get a horse to go to the forest. She walked again, her legs burning when she finally stopped. She simply walked around, until she found the tree that she'd punched. There was still dried blood on the bark and she looked down at her scraped knuckles. Torunn looked around and found a branch low enough to jump up and grab. She pulled herself up, going higher and higher until she decided that the branches above would not be able to hold her.

Torunn sat on one branch, legs dangling over the side, and she realized that, at the orphanage, she would not have been able to just pull herself up like that. She was never strong enough before. She looked at her arm and saw that she had muscles there that she had not noticed. She had been getting stronger. Since Thor had apologized and everyone now knew of what she had been through in her life, her only problem at this point was that Thor still did not believe that she was his. She would have to fix that. Maybe she would have to impress him a little more, make him proud.

Then, there were foot steps below her. Torunn glanced down to see Thor and Loki talking with each other. They seemed too distracted by their conversation to be looking for her. Even so, she went very still, trying not to be noticed.

Thor stopped directly under the tree, reaching out and running his fingers over the blood covered bark on the tree, suddenly remembering seeing Torunn's scraped knuckles. Thor held up a hand to silence Loki. "Did Torunn do this?" Thor asked.

"Yes, but I am not sure why." Loki said.

"She was angry."

"Yes."

"At me." Thor let his hand drop.

"Probably."

"When she saw me, she only saw that mortal man." Even from so far up, Torunn could hear the sadness in his voice. "She was terrified of me."

"But," Loki said, "you have spoken with her and everything is alright now."

Thor turned on his brother. "No. What if she lied again? She could still be afraid of me. She could not bring herself to tell anyone of her past until now, because of that, I did exactly what that man did to her-"

"No, brother." Loki stopped him before he could say anything else. "You did not do what that man did. You scared her, yes. But you have not hurt her at all."

"But-"

"Thor, that man beat her and screamed at her." Loki put both hands on Thor's shoulders. "That man did not care at all for her. If you did not care, you would not be so worried. Even if you do not believe that she is your daughter, you are still a better father than any man she was sent to before."

Thor nodded and Loki smiled. Thor glanced at the tree once more before they turned and started to leave.

Torunn stayed in the tree for about an hour, and when she came down, she had songs in her head. By the time she got back to the palace, she was starving. She all but ran to the dining hall, knowing that everyone else would be at the table. About halfway through the meal, Torunn caught herself quietly singing a song under her breath.

"There's times I stayed alive for you...there's times I would have died for you...there's times it didn't matter at all..." She stopped when she realized that they had gone silent around her.

After a moment, Fandral spoke up. "What were you singing?"

Torunn's face went _bright_ red. "Uh...it was 'The High Road'...by Three Days Grace."

"Do not be embarrassed, Torunn." Sif said. "You sing well."

"Uh...thanks." Torunn gave a small smile.

"It is a shame that you left your instrument on Midgard." Thor said. "I'm sure we would all love to hear more."

"Oh, about that," Loki looked up from his food. "Are you going to go anywhere else?" Torunn and Thor looked at each other.

"I do not know." Thor said. "I believe that is up to Torunn."

"Yeah, but if we do, I think your mom was right about us doing fun stuff like that instead of fighting things." Torunn said. Thor looked a bit disappointed by this, but the look faded quickly. He did enjoy watching her fight, but if she did not want to do that as much, then he wouldn't make her.

"Alright." he said. When they were all finished and everyone started to walk away, she watched Fandral glance at her and then say something to Thor that she couldn't hear. When he stopped talking, Thor looked over at Torunn, too, and nodded.

_Tell me what you said!_ She thought. _I want to know!_

Thor and Fandral walked towards her and Fandral put a hand on her shoulder and started to lead her away with Thor following them.

"What are you doing?" Torunn asked.

"We are going to the court yard." Fandral said. "We have something to for you." Then Torunn was like a child on Christmas.

_Ooh, presents!_ Was all that was going through her mind. They made it out to the court yard and Thor picked something up off of the bench. Torunn ran forwards and jumped in front of him.

"Calm down, child." he said, handing her something. She took it and realized it was a dagger. Anyone else may have been freaked out by this, but Torunn had been waiting for these for a while. She smiled.

Thor moved to the side, and there were five more laying on the bench. She smiled wider.

"Well, go on." Fandral said from behind her. "Let's see you use it." Torunn turned and threw the dagger at the straw target, hitting a centimeter away from the center. She jumped up it the air.

"I take it you like them?" Thor laughed.

"Uh-huh!" Torunn said.

"I got them while you were in the forest." Fandral said.

"Thanks!" Torunn ran a hugged him. He laughed and returned the hug. For a moment, Thor was jealous again.

"You are very welcome." He said.

"Are you going to be out here for the rest of the day?" Thor asked, in an attempt to get them apart.

Torunn turned back to Thor. "Yeah, probably." Thor smiled.

"Very well." he said, turning and walking away. Fandral smiled at her before following Thor.

Torunn was outside with her daggers until it got dark and Fandral came out to tell her that she needed to come eat.

"I thought you would be outside for a while when you got the daggers," Thor said, once she sat down. "But I did not think you would be out _this _late."

"What? I like them." Torunn said.

"That is well, but do not let me catch you out late again."

"Okay, okay." Torunn rolled her eyes.

"I mean it, Torunn." Thor looked up from his food.

"Yeah, okay." she said.

"And do not say 'Yeah, okay' to that." he said. "I am serious."

Torunn grinned. "Yeah, okay." Thor rolled his eyes. Torunn was not that hungry and finished quickly. She went to bed and fell asleep almost immediately.


	20. Whatever It Takes

_Thor was about to go sleep, but when he came to his door, it was opened. It was only cracked, but it was still opened. He entered and heard something hitting the ground repeatedly. There was a pause between bumps, and whoever it was, they were not very big. He turned the corner, and Torunn fell back. She stood again and went behind the foot of the bed and pulled on something, falling back again several seconds later._

"_Torunn?" Thor raised an eyebrow. She ignored him, doing it again. He came around the bed to see that she was trying to move Mjolnir, still in her little red night dress."How did you get into my room?" He pulled her away from the hammer when she stood and tried to get it again._

"_Loki let me in..." Torunn said. He would talk to Loki later._

"_Are you trying to lift Mjolnir?" he asked. The six year old girl looked down, as if she was ashamed. He lifted her chin to look him. "It's alright. But you are young and you need not worry yourself over lifting it."_

"_But you can..." she whined._

"_I know, but I am much older." Thor said. "I spent much of my childhood trying to lift it. Do not worry over it as I did."_

"_Okay..." Torunn said._

"_Now, you must go to sleep." Thor said, picking the child up and starting to carry her into her own room._

"_But dad!" She started squirming around, trying to get him to let go._

"_But what?" Thor copied her tone, stretching the 'what' out._

"_But I'm not _tired_!" she said._

_Thor dropped her onto her bed and she laughed. "You must sleep, child." Thor started to move the covers back. "Or else you will be tired tomorrow. And we have things to do then."_

_Torunn groaned. "Do I have to learn to use a sword?" _

"_Yes, Torunn. I want my little girl to know how to fight." Thor said, trying to pull the covers over her, but she kept kicking them away. _And she says she does not want to be a fighter_, he thought._

"_But why?" she whined, stretching the word out._

"_Because you need to know how to defend yourself, in case I am not there someday. And," Thor gave up on trying to cover her up for the moment and took both of her hands in his. "Loki and I are going to help you learn to control your power."_

"_But I know how to use it." She said._

_Thor sighed. "You know how to _use _it, but you must learn to _control_ it. You have always used it when you are angry and you loose your control. You become unaware of who you are using it against. We must remedy that."_

"_But Loki said _you_ get mad at people!" Torunn argued. Thor would definitely have to have words with Loki later._

_Thor knelt beside the bed. "Yes, I get angry, but I learned not to loose control because of my anger. Mostly because when I brought you home, I realized that I could not give you a bad example." _

_Torunn went silent for a minute, eventually crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm still not tired." Thor only sighed and pulled the covers over her._

"_Good_night_." he said, kissing her forehead and leaving._

Torunn woke up in her room. She got up, again, checking in the mirror for the cut on her lip an the scrape above her eyebrow. Again, she saw nothing of the sort. Then she grabbed the daggers that were laying on top of the dresser. She ran through the dining hall, only grabbing a piece of bread and running to the courtyard to practice with her daggers.

She threw them at the target for about two hours. The whole time, Torunn could not help but think about what would happen if she tried to lift Mjolnir. Then Thor came out carrying a belt. He threw it one the bench as she turned to face him.

"What's that?" she asked.

"You need a belt for your daggers." Thor said. "You cannot simply carry them everywhere." Torunn turned and went to pull the daggers from the target, turning back to the bench. She walked over and set the daggers on the bench. The belt was brown leather with six loops in it. She picked it up and put it on, slipping the daggers into the loops. And she smiled.

_Bet money I'm the only girl on Earth that would get excited over these things,_ she thought.

"Well?" Thor said.

"Thanks." she said, still looking down and smiling.

"You will have to practice taking them out quickly and throwing them. Otherwise, Frost Giants will get to you before you can get them." Thor said.

"Yeah, but that should be easy for me." Torunn smirked and Thor could not help but smile. But she had that look in her eyes like she had lots of things going through her mind. Before he could question it, though, she ran back in front of the target and started pulling the daggers from her belt and throwing them. Eventually, all of his friends came out. Fandral and Sif sparred behind Thor, Loki settled under the tree to read again, and Volstagg and Hogun sat on the bench with Thor to watch Torunn.

They did this until it was time to eat again, and Fandral talked with Torunn the whole way to the dining hall. They talked with each other, but Thor did not talk as much as usual. Torunn still looked like something else was on her mind, and he wanted to know what.

Torunn was going to her room, specifically to put on her cape and look at herself in the mirror with that and her belt. Thor stopped her in the hall way again. He put a hand on her shoulder and she turned quickly, a little to quickly for his liking.

"Yeah?" Torunn said.

"What are you thinking about?" Thor asked.

"What?"

"You have that look in your eye." Thor said. "Like you are thinking about many things at once and I want to know what you are thinking about."

"Uh...nothing." she started to turn around but Thor spun her around again. "What would happen if I tried to pick up the hammer?" she asked, so quickly he almost didn't understand her.

"Mjolnir?" he said.

"Yeah, that. What would happen? Could I do that? Would it even be possible for me to do that?"

Thor scoffed. "Honestly, no. You probably could not. It is rare that a mortal is worthy to hold it."

"B-but wouldn't it make you proud? I mean-" Torunn was talking very fast, eyes wide.

"Yes it would, but I doubt that you could do it." Thor said.

"Well, but I-I am not just mortal. I am still a little bit Asgardian, I might-"

"I have not said whether or not you are mine, child." Thor said. "You may not be Asgardian."

"But...but what if I did?" she asked.

"You could not." Thor nearly laughed.

"Why?" Torunn said.

"Because you are mortal." Thor said, turning and exiting the hall way without another word. Torunn ran into her room, slamming the door. She looked in the mirror to see what her belt looked like, then went into her bathroom. She went to the sink and started washing the blood from her scraped knuckles rather harshly. Only when she stopped did she realize how much it stung. She went back into the bedroom, putting both hands down on the dresser.

She was never good enough, was she? She always had to prove herself to everyone, and she never could. No one wanted her.

She would not cry. She would not cry.

She was a damaged, weak, self conscious- No. She mentally scolded herself for thinking like that. She was the daughter of Thor, and she knew it. And just like with everything else, she was going to have to prove it.

Torunn looked up into the mirror, and had she not been so angry at the moment, she might have been scared of the twisted look of rage on her face. She grabbed her cape from one of the drawers and threw it on, pulling the hood up.

She all but ran to the Bifrost observatory, walking straight towards Heimdall.

"Jotunheim." she said.

"Has your father approved of this?" he asked.

"He has made it very clear that he doesn't think he's my father yet." she said, glaring up at him.

"I should warn you that Asgard is trying to be careful with Jotunheim." Heimdall looked down at her. "It would be unwise to go there at this time."

"They won't know was there." she argued. "I will do a little damage and come back."

"I will send you, but if he asks about your location, I will tell him."

"Good." Torunn said, going to stand in front of Heimdall.

"Good luck." Heimdall said as he lifted his broadsword and things started to glow around her. Seconds later, she landed in the snow and stood, immediately heading towards the forest.

When Thor awoke the next morning, he went straight to the dining hall. When he sat down, everyone was there. Torunn, however, was not. He thought it was a little strange, but thought nothing of it, sure that she would show up later. He asked around, but no one knew where she was. When she did not show up at all to eat, he went out to the courtyard. Torunn was not there.

Thor started to ask servants if they had seen her on her the way up to her room. No one had seen her. He entered her room, but still, she was not there. He started to look around. Her cape was gone, and her bathroom sink had blood in it. Her belt and daggers were gone.

Heimdall. He would ask Heimdall.

He went to the Bifrost observatory, stomping in. "Heimdall!"

Heimdall turned his head to the side to look at Thor. "Yes?" he said.

"Tell me where Torunn has gone." Thor said.

Heimdall looked straight ahead again. "Your daughter has gone to Jotunheim."

"You let her go to Jotunheim?!" Thor shouted. "I did not approve of that!"

"She told me that your approval mattered not."

"What?!" Thor stepped up, shouting in Heimdall's face.

"She told me you had made it very clear that you did not think she was your daughter." Heimdall said, unfazed by Thor's shouting.

"Send me to her location." Thor went to stand in front of Heimdall, putting his hand out.

"As you wish." Heimdall raised his broadsword and Mjonir came flying into the room, landing in Thor's hand just as things started to glow and was sent soaring through space. He landed in the forest, looking around for a moment before noticing blood smearing several trees and and spotting the ground. He felt a pang of fear in his chest, but he was not scared for himself. He started to follow the trail of blood. When he finally spotted a bit of her cape as she ran through the trees, he ran after her. Torunn yanked a dagger out of the chest of a fallen Frost Giant. She had blood splattered in random places on her clothes and several cuts and bruises. He looked at her belt, at the other daggers, and all of them were practically coated in blood. That was not the only one. She had killed more of them.

Now, as much as Thor hated Frost Giants, this was wrong. She had no reason. She had no motivation.

"Torunn!" he shouted, making her jump a little. She turned quickly, putting the dagger back on her belt. She did not look happy with what she was doing, she only looked angry. "Yeah?"

"Wha- what have you done?" He ran to her, clutching Mjolnir tightly.

"I _hope_ I proved my strength." she said.

"How would this prove your strength?" he asked.

"You said that I was mortal." she glared at him. "And that made me weak. Now, you can see that I am not."

Thor could not think of anything to say. "You are coming back to the palace." He grabbed her arm and started to walk away but Torunn jerked her arm away from him.

"Are you not even gonna consider everything I just did?" she shouted.

"Yes!" he turned on her, almost making her jump. "I will think of all the lives you have taken without reason! Now we must get back to Asgard before any more of them come." He grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder, running back to the Bifrost site. Her anger faded just a little bit and was replaced with fear. "You are right to be afraid." he growled. Thor set her down, keeping a firm grip on her arm as they stood on the Bifrost site. "Heimdall!" Thor shouted.

Like every time they did this, things glowed, they started falling/flying, and in seconds, they were back at the Bifrost observatory.

"Watch the Frost Giants, Heimdall." Thor said, pulling Torunn along with him. "They may come for us." Heimdall only nodded as Thor yanked Torunn out of the observatory and down the hall until they reached her room. Then he pulled her in front of him and shoved her forwards, slamming the door shut.

"Why?" Thor asked, turning back to her.

Torunn hesitated, only some of her anger melting away. "I thought you would be proud."

"Why would _that_ make me proud?" Thor shouted, stepping closer. Torunn did not back away this time, although she was scared. "You took their lives without reason, and it seemed all too easy for you!"

"You do the same thing on the battle field!" She argued, daring to raise her voice again. Thor went silent for several seconds, and she thought he was going to hurt her.

His voice went scarily low and quiet. "A battle always has a purpose. What you did was for sport."

"_Your_ father would be happy if _you_ did this..." she grumbled.

"I am not my father!" he yelled. "Our quests are over." he turned and started to open the door.

"Wait!" Torunn ran forwards, slamming the door shut again and standing in front of him. "We did the quests so you could decide if you thought I was yours or not. You have to make that decision now."

Thor paused, glaring down at her. "From what I have seen today, you are not my daughter." he pushed her out of the way again, leaving and slamming the door behind him.

Thor went about his day, not knowing that anything had happened to Torunn. But he was on edge the whole day. He told his friends about what she did, and of course they were all surprised and Loki made a small comment about her having inherited Thor's anger issues.

Torunn went silent and tensed up. She was seething inside, and she turned towards the wall, leaning her forehead against it, hands curled into fist beside either side of her head. She would not cry.

Of course he didn't want _her_ as a daughter. She was damaged. She was a run away. She was a criminal. She hit everything. She didn't face any of her problems.

She would not cry. Crying was weakness. She was not weak. She had to be strong.

She could feel tears welling in her eyes, and without thinking, she punched the wall, making a hole in it.

She would not let them fall. She was not weak. She was not weak!

Torunn pulled her hand out and turned to the dresser, both hands down against it, breathing heavily. She looked at her hands an saw that her knuckles were bleeding again, she had a few scratches on both of them, and she had blood splattered on them.

She would not cry. She would not cry.

Torunn looked up slowly, scared to know what she would look like in the mirror. Her hair was messy, her lip was cut again, and she had a look of pure anger and sadness on her face. And her eyes. The once beautiful blue-grey was now dark and eery. The color of storms was deeper now, like a storm about to start.

Her fingers constricted on the dresser below her, and she curled her right hand into a fist again and slammed the side of it into the mirror. It shattered, broken pieces falling around her, and she ignored the pain in her hand. She yanked her cape off and ran to the door, not bothering to close it as she stormed down the hall. Fandral turned upon hearing the door fly open, eyes immediately wide with concern.

"Torunn? Are you-" She pushed him out of the way, almost knocking him down, and ran through the castle. She ran, pushing past everyone in her way until she reached the forest. She ran through the trees, eventually getting too tired to run, and she ended up falling down to her knees in front of the tree that she hit. She held her hands up over her eyes.

She would not cry. She would not cry.

A few tears escaped her eyes and she got angry with herself. She took her hands away from her eyes and curled them into fists, pressing them sideways against the tree. A small sob escaped her lips and more tears started to fall.

_No._ she thought. _Crying is weakness!_

Another sob escaped her and she broke down, scolding herself for it the entire time.

Torunn cried until she heard someone walking towards her. She stood up quickly and started to look around, frantically wiping tears away.

"Torunn?" Thor said. Torunn turned around quickly and Thor was walking towards her. He still looked angry, and she'd thought he had come to apologize. "Why are you here?" he asked, glaring down at her.

"I-I wanted to be alone..." Torunn said. Something didn't feel right. He was more frightening than usual. It didn't feel like Thor.

"Why are you crying?" he asked.

"I..."

"Crying is weak!" Thor shouted, making her jump back. "A daughter of mine would not cry." He came closer and she started to walk back. "You are weak and cowardly. You could never be mine." Thor raised his hand and smacked her across the face. She gasped and fell to the side. Her hand flew to her cheek.

"Wha- what...?" Torunn said, scrambling back as Thor approached her again. What was he doing? He said he'd never do what that man did. Thor didn't have Mjolnir with him, and he did not call the hammer to him like he usually did when he was angry. This was not Thor...Thor was not like this. Thor reached down and yanked her up by her wrist. A second later, he raised his hand again to hit her, but she side stepped.

Thor scowled at her and tried again. And again, she moved, barely dodging his hand. Torunn turned to run but Thor chased her, barely letting her go for two seconds before he grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her back. Before she could even try to get away, she felt her back being slammed against a tree. Thor stood before her, still glaring, and holding her by both arms against the tree. He looked her up and down.

"I should have left you in Jotunheim." he sneered. He reached down and grabbed a dagger from her belt, dragging the blade across her stomach. This definitely was not Thor.

Then he dropped the dagger, pressing his hand over the gash hard, grinning as the girl cringed and suppressed a scream.

Frigga walked quickly through the halls, having asked Heimdall about Torunn's location and checked her room. She went to Thor's chambers, knocking hard on the door. Thor opened it and smiled.

"Hello, mother." he said.

"Thor." Frigga gave a curt nod. His smiled faded.

"Is something wrong?"

"Thor, are you aware of your daughter's location?" Frigga asked.

"She is not my daughter. And I do not know where she is. Is she not in her chambers?" he asked, not very concerned about not knowing where she was.

"She is not." Frigga said. "I have asked Heimdall and he says she is weeping alone in the forest. Do you know what may have caused this behavior?"

"Well, we argued in her chambers, but that is all."

"My son, what did you say to her?" Frigga raised her voice just a little.

"I told her that what she did was wrong and that I did not believe she is my daughter." Thor shrugged, as if it was no big deal. "What is the problem?"

"Thor, you have devastated her!"

"Mother, please." Thor let out a breath of laughter. "It could not have been that bad."

"She is torn apart by this!" Frigga said. Thor raised an eyebrow, completely unconvinced. "Thor, let me in." Thor opened the door and let his mother enter, closing it behind her. "She did not have a mother, and she grew up between an orphanage and many abusive foster homes. This must have made her feel as though she was a piece of property to be passed around. When you came to Midgard that day, you gave Torunn hope and she felt that she belonged somewhere. Then she did everything she could to come to Asgard and get that feeling back. You saw how happy and at ease she has been with your friends and yourself. This has become her home, this is where she belongs and where she found hope for a better life. And now you have crushed that."

"Mother, I-" Thor started.

"Thor, go to her chambers and you will see what she has done because of her pain." Frigga turned and left without another word. Thor waited for a moment before he left his room and entered Torunn's. Glass was scattered on the floor and her cape had been torn away from her, laying under the glass. The mirror was shattered and blood was splattered on the dresser. He turned and saw that she had hit the wall, making a hole in it. And Torunn had no doubt scraped up her hands again doing this. Torunn had done this. A small mortal had done this.

Well, maybe she was not _only_ mortal.

Thor turned and ran out of the room and down the hall. When he got outside, his friends were in front of the palace, fighting several Frost Giants.

"Where have you been?" Sif shouted.

"I have to find Torunn!" Thor yelled back, running in the direction of the forest, calling Mjolnor to him and smacking down any one in his way. Thor reached the forest quickly, but when he saw Torunn, he nearly forgot how to breath. Torunn was being held by the throat by _himself_. Her left hand fumbled around beside her belt, slowly, so _Thor_ did not see it. The real Thor started running towards them, taking _Thor's_ attention away from Torunn for a moment. She grabbed a dagger and slowly brought it closer to the man.

"He...found me..." Torunn said, struggling to get the word's out.

"Foolish child, you will be dead within seconds." _Thor_ smiled devilishly.

"I know." she said, knowing he did not notice the dagger she held so close to his stomach. "You first." she growled. She stabbed him hard, the blade going straight through the monster. His eyes went wide, and he made a strangled choking sound. The form of Thor flickered and melted into a frost giant in front of her. Then the monster fell to the ground, lifeless. And Torunn was dropped, hitting the ground hard just as Thor reached her, her eyes fluttering closed.

Thor could not believe his eyes. He fell to his knees beside her and lifted her in his arms. She was bleeding through the front of her shirt, she had many shallow cuts going down her arms, and several bruises all over her. He stood and hooked one arm tightly around her waist, using the other to raise Mjolnir. He flew above several Frost Giants and Asgardians fighting each other, getting to the healing room as fast as he could.

Once she was laid on a bed, three healers came to her, stopping all of the bleeding with magic. During this, he was glad that Torunn was not awake. He had been healed with magic multiple times in his childhood, and it was quite painful to feel all of the muscle tissue and blood vessels tie themselves back together. He dreaded the thought of seeing her in pain any longer.

Thor watched as they healed her as best they could with their magic and stayed with her. He had done this. She would not have been alone in the forest if he had not said those things to her. She had made a big mistake, but he had do so many times as a child. Whether she was his daughter or not, she did not deserve to go through this.


	21. To Be The Mistake

Thor sat beside her bed in the healing room for an hour, forgetting for a little while that he had to do something about the Frost Giants. If Torunn truly was not his daughter, it would not have had such and affect on her when he denied her. And a Frost Giant had very nearly taken her life before he had a chance to tell her that he had a chance to tell her this. They would go to Jotunheim and end this before it went any further.

Sif entered the healing room and came to stand beside Thor. "Thor, you cannot stay here until she wakes. We must deal with the Frost Giants."

Thor sighed. "I know. She is my daughter. I know that now."

"We all knew." Sif said. "We tried to make you see."

Thor stood and picked up his hammer. "Well now I do. Let us go to Jotunheim."

"The Warriors Three and I defeated all of the Frost Giants that entered Asgard and Heimdall says that they will not come back soon."

Thor nodded. "Loki and I will go first. Then our armies. Then you and the Warriors Three."

Sif nodded and walked away. Thor glanced back at Torunn once more before following Sif out. Thor, Loki, Sif, and the Warriors Three were gathered in the Bifrost observatory. Thor and Loki stood in front of Heimdall as he raised the broadsword.

When they landed, a very large group of Frost Giants already stood close to the Bifrost site, having been prepared. Heimdall would have to close the Bifrost after the army was sent in to make sure no Frost Giants got into Asgard in the process, so it would be a minute before Sif and the Warriors Three arrived.

Minutes after the army was sent, their ranks began to fall. Thor and Loki were beating Frost Giants away quickly. Thor would smack them down with the hammer or with his bare hands while Loki used magic against them and threw daggers over Thor's shoulders.

They were greatly outnumbered and losing quickly when a bright light came from the Bifrost site. Seconds later, Sif and the warriors Three landed in the middle of the battle and started fighting them off. They all knew who caused this, of course, but they continued to fight to prevent any more Frost Giants from entering Asgard. Thor had an extra motive, though. He fought because they had nearly killed his daughter and they now underestimated his power.

They assumed that while she was severely injured and close to death, he would be weaker and less willing to fight, but that was their mistake.

Never, under any circumstances, should you ever underestimate the one fighting for their child.

"_Stop it!" Torunn said to a group of boys. They were only a little bit taller than her, but she knew they were much older. She told them to stop partly because she didn't like what they were doing, partly because it was making her angry and she could feel the slight burning sensation her hands. No doubt the blue glow would come soon. _

"_Or what, tiny mortal?" one of them said._

_Erinlian was among the four boys. They had been pushing her around and calling her names for about fifteen minutes now. _

"_You are mock the daughter of Thor?" Torunn said, fearing how her anger was starting to show. _

"_Why not?" Erinlian said. "You possess none of Thor's strength! You are weak!" He shoved her back, nearly making her fall. The others laughed and her fists clenched at her sides._

"_Oh, no! We've made the human angry!" one of them said, pointing and fiening fear. _

"_Oh, we should run before she yells for her daddy!" Another said. They laughed and she yelled._

"_Stop it!"_

"_Or Thor is gonna come for us?" Erinlian said. "Why would he care for you?" he shoved her again. A dark haired, pale boy appeared to Torunn's right._

"_Stop this," the boy said. "what has she done to deserve you rill treatment?"_

"_She is mortal, she is of less value." Erinlian said, walking Torunn, toward the other boy._

"_Wrong," the dark haired boy said, putting his hands on his hips. "Mortals are fragile and should be cared for."_

_Erinlian scoffed._

"_And she is the daughter of Thor, she may some Asgardian qualities." the boy added._

_Erinlian rolled his eyes. "She is a flawed thing and should be taught her place. Go away." _

_Erinlian made a shooing motion with his hands toward the boy and spread his arms wide, hitting Torunn by accident. She stumbled back and fell._

_The children could all clearly hear the loud footsteps of Prince Thor._

_Thor walked through the garden with courtiers and several highborn ladies. He and his friends had recently returned from a battle, and in that time Torunn had been alone with servants looking after her. As far as he knew, right now she was in the city with Fandral. He didn't know why, but he got the sudden feeling that something was wrong. He politely excused himself and broke away from them, running once he was out of their sight._

_He ran through the city, clashing with Fandral after a few minutes._

"_Where is Torunn?" Thor asked._

"_I do not know!" Fandral said. "I am looking for her, she wandered off! I thought she may have gone to find you?"_

"_How did she _wander off_?!" Thor shouted. "You were supposed to look after her!"_

"_I-I am sorry!" Fandral said. "I swear I looked away for a second!"_

"_We must find her!" _

_Thor ran until he heard a few children arguing. He turned the corner to see Torunn on the ground, with a dark haired boy helping her up and four other boys standing together. Thor was not angry until he noticed that Torunn's right cheek was red._

"_Who struck her?" Thor said, struggling not to yell at them. All the boys but the dark haired one pointed to the redhead. It took him another second to realize that the redhead was Erinlian. The boy who had chased her through the castle and told her she was a mistake. "Do not let me find you hurting my daughter again!" Erinlian nodded quickly and ran away. The other three boys followed. The dark haired boy stayed, though he looked like he just might run soon. _

_Thor watched them go and knelt in front of Torunn. "Are you alright?" he asked, looking at her cheek and then taking her hands to check for the blue glow. Torunn nodded slowly and when he did not see a glow, Thor looked over Torunn's shoulder at the boy. "What is your name, boy?"_

_The boy came to stand beside Torunn. "Valde, sir."_

"_Thank you, Valde." Thor said. "For helping her."_

"_You're...uh...welcome." Valde said. Torunn turned and hugged Valde. Valde's eyes went wide and he hesitated but hugged her back. He smiled when she broke away. _

"_Listen Torunn," Thor said. "I have to do something, so we will find Fandral and you must stay. With. Him. Alright?"_

_Torunn rolled her eyes. "Fine..."_

_Torunn ran through the halls, maids jumping out of the way, with Thor and the Warriors Three chasing her. Being a silly seven year old child, she thought they were playing a game. "Torunn, come back!" Fandral shouted after her. _

_"You have to get ready for the ball!" Thor added. She ran into the weapons vault, and looked around before picking place to hide. They ran in and oddly enough, they did not find her, given that she was at the back of the room, in a very tight space between a column and the back wall. _

_She was a bit smaller than most Aesir children, so she fit easily. They did not find her there and continued looking down the corridor. She looked around the column and saw that they were no longer in the room. She giggled, knowing she had fooled them for the moment, and ran from the room and down the hall in the opposite direction. _

_Valde, a dark haired, blue eyed boy, waited outside the garden for Torunn. He and Torunn were now the best of friends and whenever there was a ball or a feast that Torunn was supposed to go to, he would wait right outside the walls of the garden for her and they would run into the woods and play until it was over. Or, at least that was always the plan. Within minutes of him arriving and starting to wait for her, he heard someone climbing the wall behind him, and she fell over the other side, landing effortlessly beside him. _

_"Hello, Torunn!" he said, beaming. He bowed dramatically. _

_"Hey, Valde." she said. The two could not have looked more different. They were like Thor and Loki, in a way, like day and night. While he was dark haired, tall, and almost always trying to protect her, she was blonde, a bit short, and reckless. _

_"We should go," he said, "we always linger here and someone catches us." He grabbed her hand and they raced off into the forest, hoping no one had seen them leaving. Torunn and Valde ran through the woods, climbing trees, racing, telling jokes and just enjoying each others company. At one point, they both grabbed fallen branches and pretended to be warriors, fighting each other. _

_Valde took a swing at her legs and knocked her down on her back in a mud puddle. She gave him an angry look and he dropped the branch, putting his hand out to help her up. She smiled and took it, but her smile turned evil as she yanked him forwards, making him fall in the mud as well. Torunn laughed and Valde tried to look angry at her. They both sat up, Torunn continued to laugh and Valde kept glaring. _

_It wasn't THAT funny, and he was trying to be a gentlemen and help her up! He reached down and threw a handful of mud at her, hitting her in the chest. She gasped and did the same, only managing to hit his shoulder. They stood and continued throwing mud balls at each other, the act becoming more of a playful game than a form of fighting. That is, until he accidentally nailed her in the face._

_Torunn did not even bother to wipe it away as her blue-grey eyes started to cloud up, the color of the iris seeming to spread over the white part and her pupils. He knew what was coming, and he picked up the branch again, knowing it would not help. The tips of Torunn's fingers had a barely perceptible blue glow to them now. Torunn put her hands out towards Valde, and small lines of lighting exploded from her hands. Valde jumped out of the way. _

_"Torunn!" he shouted at her. Torunn was almost unaware of her surroundings when she was like this, that he knew, but he was still hopeful that she would hear him and stop. She tried to hit him several more times, Valde dodging almost easily now, as this was not the first time the Daughter of Thor lost her temper. _

_"Torunn stop!" the voice of Thor yelled. Thor emerged from the trees, running to Torunn and forcing her hands down before she could try to strike Valde again. Her eyes glistened slightly with on coming tears and slowly faded back to their usual look, the color of storms retreating back to her irises. She would have fallen to the ground, the power always weakening her greatly, especially given that she was at such a young age, but Thor caught her easily. Torunn fell into his arms, and he held her much like any father might cradle his child. He lifted her and ran through the woods, passing the warriors three on the way back and telling Fandral to bring Valde. _

_Torunn wasn't at any risk of dying, he knew, but she would be very weak for a little while and he wanted to get her to her chambers quickly so she could rest. _

_Well, he thought, they did want to miss the ball._

_Thor ran through the castle holding Torunn in his arms. Thor entered her room and laid her down on her bed. _

_"Is she alright?!" A healer asked, having apparently followed him in. Thor turned to her. _

_"Yes, she is only weakened." He looked down at Torunn again. "But it may not always be that way, if she does not learn to control this..." He said, watching the last bits of the blue glow fade from her finger tips. _

_She opened her eyes briefly and looked up at him. "Did you see that burning tree I hit?" she asked wearily. Thor could not help but smile at his daughter, and he almost laughed. _

_"No one will ever deny that you are mine."_

The battle lasted for three weeks, which was very short considering how long they usually were. The Frost Giants sent in more and more until they had lost so many that they had to surrender and swear that they would not try to enter Asgard. They did so and Thor and the survivors went back to Asgard.

Thor, of course, planned on going straight to Torunn. When they arrived home, many of the other soldiers cheered and started to tell them all about the celebration the they had already planned. In all the commotion, Thor couldn't seem to get through the crowd. When he finally pushed through them and made it out of the observatory, he found Frigga waiting for him. She smiled and hugged him.

"Is Torunn alright, mother?" Thor asked as she pulled away. "Does she live?"

"Yes, Thor. She has been moved to her own chambers to rest for the day. And I think you and your friends should do the same."

Odin stopped him on the way to his chambers to tell him that the celebration would be held the next night.

Thor went to his bed and slept until noon the next day. He did not see Torunn at all, but he heard that she was doing well and that she had gotten up and had spent the day sparring with Fandral and Sif. Torunn had not been in the healing room long, no matter now much Thor tried to deny it, she still had Aesir blood in her, so she had always been a fast healer. Torunn had not been in the healing room long, no matter now much Thor tried to deny it, she still had Aesir blood in her, so she had always been a fast healer. Between matches, Sif and Fandral told her about everything that would happen at the celebration and where they would have to stand during the Allfather's speech.

Torunn, Sif, and the Warriors three walked through the halls together, on their way to the throne room.

"Are you nervous?" Sif asked Torunn.

"Nah." Torunn shrugged. "All I gotta do is stand there. Are _you_ nervous?"

"No. But I used to be during these sort of things."

"Why?

"Most citizens of Asgard do not approve of female warriors. That is why I thought you would be nervous. Do you remember where we will be standing?"

"Uh...I remember that we are on the steps beside the throne..."

"Alright, well Loki will stand to the Allfather's right, Thor to his left. Beside Thor will be me, then Hogun, and then Volstagg." Sif said, with Torunn nodding at every name. "Beside Loki will be Fandral and then you."

Torunn thought for a moment. "Okay, I think I got it. Thanks." Sif smiled as she, Hogun, and Volstagg went down a separate hallway to get to the other side of the throne room.

As the All Father was giving the speech about the warriors who fought bravely in the battle, Torunn's vision started to blur and her stomach started hurting. She wrapped an arm around herself and tried to hide the pain.

"Are you alright?" Fandral whispered to her right.

"Yeah...I'm fine." She whispered back, mentally cursing the slight waver in her voice.

But Loki, to her left, did not have to be the Prince of Lies to know that something was wrong. Torunn wrapped both arms around her middle tightly, holding back a whimper. Her stomach was killing her, tears welled in her eyes and she struggled to stand.

Torunn bit back a cry as pain ripped throughout her body. She felt as if she had been cut in half. Thor glanced over at his daughter, originally to see if she was doing alright, but his face melted into a look of horror upon seeing her nearly doubled over in pain.

Torunn almost fell, her legs going weak beneath her. But Fandral was quick to act, catching her and lifting her into his arms. He went behind Loki and down the hallway, surprisingly not attracting much attention.

Odin's speech was over soon and all of the warriors present raised their weapons and shouted "For Asgard!" As soon as the attention was off of them, Thor and Loki took off down the hall. Fandral was a long ways ahead of them, but they did not need to see him to know where he was taking her.

Fandral held Torunn tightly, she was shaking in his arms and occasionally convulsing, her skin ice cold. He made it into the healing room and put her down on a bed. The same three healers came up to her again.

"What happened?" One of them asked.

"I do not know." Fandral said. They stood around her, one of them lifting her shirt to expose her stomach. There was no wound, aside from the previous one, which shouldn't have been hurting her now. Except for one thing: it had started to heal a little, then it had stopped. It didn't get worse, but it wasn't getting better like it should have.

"She's been poisoned..." One of the healers gasped. Fandral was shooed out of the room and the healers went to work trying to figure out how to stop it. He found Thor and Loki on the way back and had to tell them that no one was allowed to be in there at the time. Thor thanked him a thousand times for helping her.

"But how could she be poisoned?" Thor said, trying and failing to make sense of it.

"Thor, they do not know how this happened," Fandral said, "and they are doing they're best to help her. We should just go about our business and come back tomorrow."

Thor did not want to leave her, but he did not seem to have a choice. "Thank you," he said to Fandral. He turned around and went straight to his chambers, not wanting to be around the others if all he would do was worry. He sat alone for hours, worrying and wondering who would do this, and how they did it.


	22. You Can't Live Without

Torunn could die thinking that Thor did not love her, that he still did not even consider her Asgardian.

His door opened and two people stepped in. "Hello, Loki. Fandral." Thor said.

"Thor, I think I know what happened." Loki said, getting right to the point. "The Frost Giant poisoned her. But it takes some time to take effect."

"Thank you, brother." Thor said. "But what will it do to her?"

"I do not know." Loki said.

"She felt very cold and she was shaking as I carried her." Fandral chimed in. "I think she was shivering. And they said that the wounds had stopped healing."

"It is trying to freeze her from the inside out. When you are cold, your body shivers to get you in motion and try to generate heat. She is shaking so violently because something is literally trying to turn her muscles to ice and her bodies reaction is to move as much as possible to prevent that." Loki explained. Thor was relieved to finally know what was happening, but now had a new worry of how they were going to stop it.

The healers rushed around, unable to figure out what was wrong with her. Frigga had joined them, being a very talented healer herself. Torunn cried out, having no reason to hold it back anymore. She was still shaking and occasionally gasping for air. Frigga stroked the side of her face in an attempt to calm her. They had been this way for nearly three hours, the pain never subsiding or getting better in any way, it only continued to get worse.

"M-make it...s-stop..." she said weakly.

"Shh..." The Queen said, "We are trying."

Thor, Fandral, and Loki came in. "Mother!" Thor said, walking ahead of them, "We think we know what has happened." Frigga stood but stayed within Torunn's sight. Loki went on to tell them exactly what he and Fandral had told Thor. Thor could not stop looking at Torunn, so scared that she would not make it. She was so weak and she must have been in so much pain. She was so pale she was almost white.

"But..." one healer said, "Do we even have a cure for that?"

"Yes." Frigga said. She looked at Thor. "But you may want to leave the room."

"Mother, I am staying here." Thor said. Fandral and Loki, however, decided to heed the Queen's warning and walk out. Thor took a few steps back.

One of the healers came forward with a knife and cut a slit into the middle of the previous wound, making Torunn whimper. Frigga knelt beside Torunn again and took her hand. A second healer spread some sort of white liquid over the slit and Torunn grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Why is it hurting her?!" Thor asked.

"It is alright, my son." Frigga said. "It will be over quickly." Torunn whimpered again and it became evident to Thor that it caused much more pain than Torunn was letting on. She was holding it back because he was there. Tears escaped Torunn's eyes and she blinked rapidly, trying to make them disappear before Thor noticed. Frigga brushed them away as softly as she could.

"More." Frigga said. The healer added more of the stuff over Torunn's wound and Torunn cried out. She hadn't even realized that she was thrashing until Thor and another healer came to hold her arms and legs still. Thor only held Torunn still, but could not bare to look at her.

After several minutes, Torunn's skin was no longer cold and some of the color came back . She was asleep almost immediately.

"What now? Did it work? Will she be alright?" Thor asked.

"Now we can only wait." Frigga said. "I suggest you do what you've been doing."

"Mother, what I've been doing is sitting alone and worrying about her. I want to stay." Thor said, coming closer to the bed.

"She needs to rest. I am unsure if we have cured her." Frigga said. Thor nodded and left, along with Loki and Fandral. They ate at the banquet that night, but they were not happy and loud, like they usually were. They were too worried to do anything but eat and go their separate ways.

Thor went to his room and tried to sleep, not bothering with his armor, knowing tomorrow would come faster the sooner he went to sleep. He laid there for hours, trying and failing to get any sleep at all. Finally, some time in the middle of the night, when only a few guards were still awake, he decided he would not stand by any longer. He got up and left his room, heading straight for the healing room to see Torunn.

Torunn was his daughter. Thor had to tell her he knew that. And no one would stop him from seeing her.

Torunn was not in the healing room, and Thor was sent away sense he was not visiting anyone.

"Well, then where is she?" Thor asked a healer.

"Torunn was sent to her own chambers." The healer said. Thor turned and ran to her chambers. Two guards had been positioned outside her chamber door to make sure no one entered. He started to approach the door but on guard stepped in front of him.

"Let me in!" He said.

"We were told not to allow anyone to enter-" the other guard started.

"I do not care, let me through!" He shouted. For what ever reason, it made her jump. "Let me see my daughter!"

"Sir, we-" the guard started again. Thor shoved the guard aside and entered the room. He sat in the chair beside her bed. Torunn had been dressed in a thin white gown, and through it, he could make out the scars on her arms. He slowly pulled her sleeve up and ran his fingers over the scars and new cuts. There were also bruises on her neck and a small scrape on her cheek.

His curiosity got the better of him and he pulled the covers back, placing a hand over her stomach, knowing which lines were from scars and which was from the new cut.

Torunn stirred slightly and he stopped, pulling the covers back up and unrolling her sleeve.

Her eyes opened slowly and she sat bolt up right, crying out when she felt the pain. Thor jumped up, making her lay back down and she looked around, momentarily forgetting where she was.

"Torunn...calm down, my child." he whispered. "You are alright." Her eyes locked on him.

"You...you said..." Torunn was too shocked to speak.

"Yes." Thor said, wrapping his arms around her. "You are my child." Torunn couldn't move, or speak, or think straight. So she just hugged him back. "I am so sorry."

"I-It's okay..."


End file.
